Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting
by odmonkey
Summary: "It would have been difficult to say who was more unpleasantly surprised, Haruno Sakura or the five members of the Akatsuki, when she walked into the back-end of nowhere bar". Filthy words and sexy talk are all part of a day's work for the Akatsuki.
1. Chapter 1

I'm not sure how many parts there will be to this, at least two I'm thinking. This is supposed to be funny and all the characters are in character enough to be recognisable but out of character enough to allow for laughs. I'm also re-writing Moonlight Viewing to make it less crap, i.e. add a real storyline and characterisation and with less stupidity. Keep an eye out for it.

I do not own anything to do with Naruto. This has naughty words and sexy talk.

XXXXX

It would have been difficult to say who was more unpleasantly surprised, Haruno Sakura or the five members of the Akatsuki, when she walked into the back-end of nowhere bar. There was a dead silence that even the drunks didn't dare break. The S-Class criminals had clearly been drinking in the sleazy bar for a while as not even Itachi could manage to shake the stupefied look off his face. Sakura meanwhile was just finished with an incredibly long and tiring mission and was not in the mood for this _goddamnit_. The silence seemed to stretch into eons and Kisame could feel the arm that was holding his drink up to his mouth starting to get cramped.

Finally Sakura snorted, shook her head and went over to the bar to ask about getting a room for the night. Not even looking back at the extremely dangerous men she headed up the stairs, determined to have a shower then drink herself insensible.

"She was fucking hot! Anyone catch what room she got?" Hidan leered in the direction she had just left. "What you giving me that look for Deidara? You'd bang her too!"

"You don't know who that is do you, you stupid shit?" Deidara was looking very much like he was going to blow something up. Possibly Sakura, possibly Hidan, maybe both.

Hidan just scoffed at him, with hair like that he had to be gay. Kakazu merely looked to Kisame; he was usually the sane one.

"Err ... " The large man paused, rifling through his fuzzy brain for where he might know the pink haired girl from.

"She was on my little brother's team, and she is the Godaime's apprentice, so she must be a medic."

Hidan rolled his eyes, even with a night's worth of drinks in him Itachi physically couldn't loosen himself up. Deidara was still glaring up the stairs so Hidan elbowed him hard in the ribs.

"Come on then blondie, if you know who the chick is, spill it."

"She's the one who killed Sasori-danna, yeah?" Kakazu made a grab for the large bottle of sake on the table when Deidara slammed his hand down, almost shouting in Hidan's face.

Instead of this information putting Hidan on guard like it did to the other members of the group it seemed to entertain him judging by the lecherous grin spreading over his face.

"So she's a feisty one eh? Be honest then, do you think she puts out?"

Kakazu felt as though he couldn't roll his eyes hard enough at the things that came out of his partner's mouth. This feeling increased when he realised Kisame seemed to be giving the question some serious consideration seeing as how he was squinting in the direction Sakura had left. Itachi was thinking along the same lines as the bounty hunter because Kisame almost spat out a mouthful of drink when he caught a sharp elbow in the ribs. Deidara shook his head and downed a large glass; it wasn't that he really missed his former partner but it was more the fact he felt as though Sakura shouldn't have been able to kill him.

Hidan was going over the possibility of threatening the owner to get her room number and then busting in. He was immortal after all, so the chance he might end up like Sasori was remote. Besides she had looked strung out and angry as hell when she came in and there was no better cure for that than some rough enemy-fucking. Hidan didn't realise he was grinning lasciviously but most of the other patrons of the bar were inching their tables away just in case he was thinking about them. On the other hand he was rather enjoying drinking with the boys, something they didn't get to do often enough. What was that phrase? Oh yeah '_bros before hoes_'. Plus he'd been told by the leader to keep a very low profile and surely shagging a leaf kunoichi in a bar would get him in trouble. Particularly as she sounded as if she'd put up a fight.

His musings were interrupted when the main feature of them walked down the stairs again with her wet hair tied up. Hidan cursed, if he had gone and bust in earlier he could have caught her in the shower. Looking slyly at his fellows he could see that similar thoughts were passing through their heads. Well, with maybe the exception of Itachi.

"It is foolish to shower with an enemy so close." Even Kisame, Itachi's staunch supporter, couldn't help rolling his eyes at Itachi's straight-laced attitude. Even Deidara who was pissed off over the death of his partner and subsequent attachment to Tobi was giving her an appraising look.

"Oh shut up red-eyes, you wouldn't know fun if it -" A warning glance from Kakazu stopped Hidan in what was bound to have been a filthy metaphor.

Sakura had taken a seat at the bar and had struck up a casual conversation with the bartender who looked at her strangely before placing down beside her one of the largest bottles of sake the joint served. Pouring herself a glass she stretched out and began reading a scroll pulled from her thigh pouch. Itachi was instantly interested.

Hidan was less interested. "Oh great, she's a geek. Still, bet I could teach her a thing or two!" He waggled his eyebrows. "You know what I mean?"

"Hidan, the bottle of sake knows what you mean." Kakazu wondered for the millionth time why fate was so cruel to him as to have Hidan as a partner.

"Oh please stitches, when was the last time you got any?"

Kisame and Deidara stopped looking at Sakura in favour of trying to stop this particular line of conversation going any further. Whenever the topic of sex came up Hidan could not be stopped from regaling them with all of his _many_ exploits. The man sure was into some weird stuff.

However before they could convince (i.e. utilise physical violence) Hidan not to talk Kakazu merely smirked. This put everyone on guard, even Itachi who had been preoccupied trying to figure out what the kunoichi was reading. Kakazu only smirked when one of three conditions were met: when he was about to kill someone who annoyed him, when he was collecting a particularly profitable bounty, and finally when he was about to say something that would enrage the Jashinist. Deidara, Kisame and Itachi braced while Sakura looked over crossly as she felt the tension in the room escalate.

"Well Hidan, you know that blonde 'fit bitch' you, and I quote, 'wouldn't mind showing the _real _staff of Jashin?'" There was a very unfeminine snort from the bar but it was ignored. "Let's just say stitches were very much her thing." Kakazu knew he had hit a nerve, Hidan had spent that entire mission trying to get into her pants but Kakazu was one _smooth_ motherfucker if he did say so himself.

Hidan's hand twitched and for a brief moment there was complete silence in the bar. Deidara was looking worriedly at the tick developing on the Jashinist's forehead while Kisame had the excellent forethought to quietly gather up their drinks and slide his chair back from the table. No one even dared breathe and for a second it looked like Hidan could be calmed down but Kakazu had put up with enough bullshit from him during their past mission and he was going to enjoy this moment.

"Did you know she had a tattoo, Hidan? It started mid-thigh and went all the way up to her –"

Kakazu was cut off by Hidan's roar of "YOU BASTARD!" and by his flipping over of the table in his effort to attack his partner.

Unfortunately one of the drunks at the next table was attempting to flee the blast radius when his lack of co-ordination sent him tottering backwards right into Hidan's way. Infuriated at something coming between him and the much needed delivery of an ass-kicking he pulled a fist back, ready to drop the guy and get back to murdering Kakazu. However suddenly he realised that his hand had stopped, before hitting the drunk. Ready to fucking take-down whoever it was that was interfering (if it was that do-goody Uchiha again he was going rip him a new one) he opened his mouth to yell but stopped when he realised that the hot chick was holding his wrist in a grip that rivalled Kisame's and the drunk by the collar with the other hand. Again silence descended over the bar. Hidan was torn between fucking her shit up and just fucking her. Kakazu was mildly interested that she had got him to shut up. Kisame had righted the table and was laying out their drinks again, wishing he had some snacks for watching the events unfold. Deidara was beginning to realise how this woman had stood up to his Danna, she didn't look like she took any shit. Itachi was already going over how he could possibly explain this to the leader in his mind.

"Look, you two can go back to arguing like a fucking old married couple but leave the goddamn civvies out of it, understand?" Sakura emphasised her point by increasing the pressure on Hidan's wrist and glaring at Kakazu.

Kakazu was mildly impressed by this slip of a girl who had managed to cover the distance from the bar to Hidan in a fraction of a second as well as being brave (stupid?) enough to interfere with the Akatsuki.

Hidan was in love. Not only was she hurting him in a delightful way but hearing swear-words come out of her pretty mouth was doing funny things to his insides (and parts of his outside, if he was honest).

The other three kept looking at each other wondering how this stand-off was going to resolve itself. In the end it was Sakura who finished it. She pushed the drunk away to his friends, released Hidan's wrist and announced to the rest of the bar that everything was under control. When the other patrons began talking uneasily amongst themselves Sakura addressed the group when she noticed Deidara was about to open his mouth.

"No! I'm fucking tired, hungry and pissed off. All I want to do is have a drink, have something to eat and go to bed. I couldn't care less what you guys are up to and I _do not_ want you to bother me, clear?"

Taking in the rather shell shocked appearance of the five men she nodded and attempted to go back to her seat at the bar. Sakura realised that she was taking her life in her hands but frankly she didn't care so long as she got to lie down soon. Therefore when Hidan grabbed her upper arm to stop her from leaving she couldn't help the words that came out, born of frustration and bone-deep weariness.

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know they let deaf fuckers into Akatsuki, or were you just not listening?"

Hidan just pulled her closer and took a deep breath to get the smell of her still-wet hair. "Goddamn bitch, swear at me again, it makes you fucking hot, seriously!"

Sakura took a long, appraising look at him before looking to his friends to confirm if he was actually the crazy rapist he was appearing to be. Kisame just shrugged, Kakazu rolled his eyes and Deidara was giving her an odd look, as if his opinion of her was being changed. She didn't risk looking at Itachi, 72 hours of torture was not high on her to-experience list. Looking back at Hidan she did have to admit if he wasn't a homicidal maniac crossed with a hyper-sexed jerk he'd be hot. Still, she was in no way going to stay in this crazy situation because of her hormones. Pulling her arm back quickly from his grasp she told him that he was a freak and that she was going to finish her drink and go to bed.

"Alone!" When she saw Hidan's face light up.

Straightening her ruffled top she nodded at the other men and made her way back over to the bar to be fussed over by the barman when he saw the hand imprint forming around her bicep.

The Akatsuki members slowly gathered around the table again but the only topic of conversation was Sakura. Hidan kept casting her longing looks that she studiously ignored. Itachi was extremely relieved that there had been no damage done and their low profiles were relatively intact. Deidara was looking thoughtful, "What's her name again?"

Kisame rubbed his chin, "It's something stupidly generic isn't it? Like Hana or something?"

"I think Hatake mentioned it was Sakura." Itachi replied, refilling his cup.

"Her parents must have been extremely unimaginative." Kakazu may not have been an artist like the blonde but he still found her name to be dull and obvious.

"Heh, what does it matter what she's called? What's more important is what she'll be calling me when I get my hands on her!" Hidan grinned, missing the way Sakura's hand clenched menacingly as his deep voice carried across the bar.

"I thought Jashin disapproved of rapists." Itachi was the only one in the organisation who didn't immediately shut-down when Hidan started talking about his religion.

Hidan glared at him, being one of the few unfazed by the sharingan – Itachi had been extremely shocked that Hidan had enjoyed the three solid days of torture and then asked for another go later – "I am not a goddamn rapist! Someone as fucking sexy as me does not have to force anyone! "

"She doesn't seem that into you, yeah." Deidara was hoping beyond hope that Hidan was going to make an ass of himself so they could see what the little spit-fire was really made of. Sasori loved pretty things, so maybe being finished off by Sakura wasn't so bad. She certainly proved that eternally lasting art wasn't superior, judging by the destroyed puppets surrounding their battle scene.

"Oh she is, I can tell. Stupid leaf ninjas tend to be loyal to their stupid village though, no offence red-eyes."

"None taken, Hidan. Do you have your copy of the newest bingo book with you Kisame?"

Kisame rifled through the pack at his feet, eventually finding the small book tucked in a side-pocket. He began flicking through it but he wasn't sure if she would even be in it and voiced this concern.

"She involved herself in Akatsuki business and walked away unscathed. We've killed people for a hell of a lot less than breaking up a fight and cheeking us the way she did. She's obviously confident." Kakazu was impressed by her behaviour, Hidan usually killed people who acted the way she did rather than lust after them.

"Aha! Here she is, although I gotta admit I'm real surprised, she doesn't look like much does she?" Kisame flipped the book round so they could see the picture of the pink-haired woman, Konoha forehead-protector holding back her hair rather than lying loosely around her neck as it was now.

Hidan leaned back in his chair to get a better look at her, "Read it out, man."

"Haruno Sakura, age 20, trained under the copy-ninja Hatake Kakashi, the second apprentice of the legendary Sannin Tsunade the fifth Hokage of Konoha-gakure. Perfectly balanced chakra control, excellent medical talents, genjutsu specialist, super-strength. Responsible for the death of Akatsuki member Akasuna no Sasori, approach with extreme caution..." Kisame looked over at the bar and whistled through his teeth, no wonder she was confident enough to face the Akatsuki to save a drunk's life. She wasn't S-class yet but she was only twenty, if she continued at the same rate she soon would be.

"Everything alright Itachi?"

Itachi was looking rather confused, however due to his genetics it came across as little more than a slight line between his eyebrows. "Yes Kisame, I was just remembering something my dearest otouto said. Last time I saw him he was under the impression that she was an incompetent ninja."

"Well let's face it, yeah, your brother isn't that interested in anything with a vagina is he?" Deidara couldn't decide whether he hated Itachi or Sasuke more, although he had to admit, these pub outings were warming him to the elder.

"I don't understand your meaning?"

"Sasuke's as gay as the day is long, is what he means. If she was on my team when I was a hormonal teenager I certainly wouldn't have run off to be kiddy-fiddled by the snake-bastard."

"You still do all your thinking with your dick Hidan."

"Yeah, and I'm still smarter than you fuckers, seriously!"

Sakura couldn't help the smirk that crossed her face listening to the S-class criminals banter back and forth. If only there was some way to tell her friends back in Konoha that she had five of the most dangerous men in the country reading _her_ bingo-book entry and discussing _her_ skills. Unfortunately she would have to explain why she didn't at least try to put up a fight (although, taking on one Akatsuki was usually suicide, never mind five). She would also have to explain why they, especially Itachi, didn't try to get any information out of her and then dispose of her. There might also be a few eyebrows raised about why the feared immortal priest was desperately trying to get into her knickers. Still, she smiled as she finished her last cup of sake, they would probably be gone in the morning. Paying her tab to the astonished barman, who couldn't believe such a small woman had put away such a huge bottle with seemingly no ill effects, she started to move to the stairs.

Of course today wasn't her day; this week hadn't been her week in fact. As soon as she put her foot on the first step towards a comfy bed for the night three sound-nins swaggered into the bar. The stopped on the threshold and scanned the room, thinking they were making a dramatic entrance. They hadn't turned far enough right to notice the Akatsuki when they caught sight of Sakura's distinctive pink hair. They smirked at each other and began to come towards her, through the bar. Sakura felt their stupid, cocky looks on the back of her neck and sighed heavily. Turning around and facing them she began counting the ways she could get out of this without injuring anyone other than these idiots. She needn't really have worried though, sound ninjas were notorious in these parts and the other patrons were slowly backing away from any potential trouble. She couldn't help but smirk at the fact the five men in the corner were a thousand times more dangerous than these three but the drunks didn't seem to realise it. She quickly gauged their chakra and estimated they were around chunnin level but you could never be sure what with the crazy experiments that went down in Sound.

The 'leader' of this little band pointed at her, "So, what's a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?"

Sakura felt her jaw drop slightly. This was obviously a tactic of some sort; no one ever used that line un-ironically, did they? Even the drunks were hard pressed to hold back grins of mixed amusement and embarrassment.

The ninja seemed rather taken aback by her incredulous reaction. Surely he wasn't expecting her to fall over him with a shitty line like that? The women in Sound must be desperate or terribly ugly. Judging by that red-haired terror Sasuke had managed to saddle himself with last time she saw him it was probably both. The man's two cohorts looked at each other rather nervously behind his back, perhaps stunned that their leader's smooth techniques weren't working.

Sakura's brain finally stopped trying to work out what the 'underneath of the underneath' was in this situation. "Are you fucking serious?"

There was an odd noise that sounded a like a strangled groan followed by the sound of someone being slapped on the back of the head from the Akatsuki table but everyone ignored it.

Realising Sakura clearly wasn't going to be swept off her feet by his skills with words alone the head of the group decided to step it up with his physical presence. He was well over six foot and towered over her much smaller frame, however his imposing physique didn't seem to be having the intended effect either. The woman was giving him a look so hard it could have burnt through concrete; she didn't like people trying to push her about. Therefore when the ninja lost his temper and attempted to grab her and pull her up the stairs he shouldn't have been surprised when she shot a hand out and crushed the bones in his forearm before dropping him to the floor and watching him write in agony. The other two looked back and forth between her and their leader torn between wanting to help him up and wanting to avoid being anywhere near her.

However orders are orders and when their leader managed to pull himself to standing and ordered that all three of them were going to subdue her and 'teach her a lesson' they had to fall into attacking positions. Leader cradled his destroyed arm and leered at her, "We're gonna make you beg for this to stop." Sakura probably didn't help his anger problem by rolling her eyes at this statement but was very surprised that when he lunged at her it wasn't her that hit him so hard he went slamming into the bar with a sickening crack.

"Oh HELL no! The only one gonna be teaching this bitch a lesson is me!"

Sakura stared at the priest who had despatched her would-be attacker with little to no effort. He turned and grinned down at her, "A lesson you'll fucking love, seriously!"

She glanced over to the other Akatsuki and found that they had slapped their hands to their foreheads, at this moment ashamed to be seen with the embarrassingly flamboyant Jashinist. Rubbing her eyes she couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous the entire scenario was.

"Thank you for ... er ... rescuing me. What's your name again?" Sakura shook her head as the other two ninjas tried to wake up their fallen comrade.

"Hidan, and don't you fucking forget it bitch!"

"Yeah, Sakura." She was slightly distracted by the fact the ninjas were yanking their leader to his feet when it was obvious from over here that he had several broken ribs. She was pulled out of this by Hidan grabbing her hand, "Fucking charmed, seriously!"

Sakura finally cracked and smiled widely at him, for an S-class criminal bent on destroying her home and killing her best friend, he wasn't all bad. He gave her an answering grin and she couldn't deny that he had a killer smile to add to his movie-star good looks. Their little moment was interrupted by Kakazu's rough voice, "Come on Hidan, you can get your dick wet some other time."

Hidan whirled round to glare at his friends and demand they stop cock-blocking him when the ninjas staggered out the door shouting that this wasn't over and that they'd be back. Sakura rolled her eyes and yawned, pulling her hand out of Hidan's.

"What the fuck ever, if they come back you guys can handle them right?" Sakura crossed her arms and resisted the urge to smile at the assorted men. When they nodded, still unsure of how to deal with this crazy situation they found themselves in; she waved and began walking to her room again. Praying no one was going to get in her way again she was extremely pleased when she was able to close her door and fall face down on the bed, with no intention of moving again for a long time.

"I hate you Kakazu. See if I ever play your wingman again." Hidan was moping around since his moment had been disrupted.

Itachi rolled his eyes, "Forget about the kunoichi Hidan. We have more important things to do than lust after enemy women."

"Now I see where Sasuke gets it from..."

The other males at the table laughed aloud at Deidara's muttered aside and clinked their glasses. This evening had certainly not been boring.

XXXXX

"Hey, bitch, wake up!"

"What the fuck are you doing in here Hidan!"

"Shut up you dumb bitch! We're in trouble..."

R/R!


	2. Chapter 2

This chapter is more of a build-up sort; therefore it's short on laughs and altogether not as good as the first one. However, the scene is set for a good few laughs next time. Thanks for all the reviews guys, means a lot.

I do not own Naruto etc etc.

XXXXX

Sakura was tired, so tired in fact that she almost missed her senses screaming at her that something wasn't right. She was very proud of those senses, able to pick up danger from a considerable distance and get her ready for action. The very edges of her consciousness were alerting her that her genjutsu traps around the door had been disabled. Her ears were picking up the muttered swearing that was getting closer. Part of her wanted so very badly to ignore her senses and stay asleep but ninjas who did that tended to end up dead. She finally managed to struggle her way to consciousness and open her eyes, only to be greeted by the sight of Hidan almost on top of her.

"Hey, bitch, wake up!"

"Hidan what are you doing in here?" Sakura had never been so relieved she'd had the sense to sleep in most of her clothes.

"Shut up you dumb bitch! We're in trouble..." Hidan hissed, only just resisting the urge to clap a hand over her mouth in case she started shouting.

The glare she was giving him could have melted steel but this was no time to enjoy antagonising her. Picking up her pack from the floor he swung it onto the bed and began shoving the stuff she'd taken out the night before back in. He ignored her spluttered protests, simply looking her up and down and telling her to get dressed. Sakura could hardly believe what was going on. Looking at the clock on the bedside table she could tell she'd only been asleep for a couple of hours. She had been fully expecting to wake up some time in the afternoon with the Akatsuki merely a vague memory. It had certainly been an experience meeting them and the flamboyant priest but she'd been sure they'd be back to being enemies afterwards. Hidan had finished shoving things randomly into her pack and was now staring at her impatiently.

"Hidan, look, it was nice meeting you guys and not have you kill me and all but I'll be damned if I'm going anywhere with you without a good reason!"

"Unless you convert to Jashinism you'll be damned anyway bitch, seriously! Come on now, we haven't got time to be dicking around." He reached forward to grab her arm and haul her out of bed but she slapped his hand away.

Sakura was fully awake now and realised that there was unlikely to be anything she could do to get him to leave her alone. Experience had taught all ninjas that the Akatsuki usually got what they wanted. Besides if she struggled too much he might knock her out or something to make it easier and she wanted to be conscious at all times around the priest, just in case. Also, if the Akatsuki thought something was trouble she could admit she wanted to have them between her and whatever it was. Flipping back the covers and wincing when the cold air hit her skin she began pulling on her high boots. Hidan watched with rapt fascination as she tightened the straps around her toned calves and only gave her a lascivious wink in response to her glare.

"This is totally going the wrong fucking way." Hidan sighed as she finished arranging her medic apron and pulling on her travelling cloak.

Sakura just rolled her eyes, swinging her pack over her shoulders and gesturing for him to lead the way. Instead of heading out the door like she expected he flung open the window. He had to throw himself back from it to avoid the shurikens that came shooting out of the trap she had set.

"What the hell bitch?"

Sakura just shrugged at him. "You guys were downstairs..."

This seemed to make sense to him because he gingerly jumped out, wary of more traps. The infamous red and black cloak fluttered in the breeze before he landed silently on the grass below. Sakura debated not following and trying to go back to bed. However something told her that she would never get away that easily, especially from the strange immortal. Pulling out a few bills to cover the cost of the room she placed them on the table before leaping out into the night.

She landed equally quietly beside him and he leaned in far too close for her liking to whisper that she needed to mask her chakra. Figuring she was already in this deep she nodded and complied. She could work out how she was going to explain these strange goings on when she'd had a bit more sleep. Tsunade would understand, she could say she was gathering intelligence, taking advantage of their lackadaisical attitudes. Something along those lines. She only realised she was slipping back into a sleepy haze when Hidan yanked on her hand to get her moving towards the tree line out of the back of the inn.

"What the hell's the matter with you, seriously?" Hidan whispered, secretly enjoying the excuse to hold her hand and think about what else he could be holding.

"Long mission, no sleep, crazy S-class criminals." Sakura felt this summed up everything that was wrong with her without expending any necessary energy. They were already moving far too far for her liking and were getting deep into the forest. She would have a hell of a time getting out of here when this ridiculous escapade was over.

"We're not fucking crazy!" He scowled at her arched eyebrow.

"Says the man who gets off on stabbing himself."

"That's a ritual bitch, you godless heathens just don't understand. Now if you're good and keep your fucking voice down I'll show you what else gets me off." Hidan grinned wildly at her.

Sakura almost smirked but didn't want to encourage him so summoned a look of intense boredom at this notion. This didn't seem to put him off so she was quite relieved when she spotted other red and black cloaks further ahead. It wasn't that Hidan wasn't attractive, minus the homicidal tendencies and the wanting to destroy her village stuff, but this situation was going to be hard enough to explain as it was. Trying to get across that the immortal priest was extremely handsome and had a sexy voice would go down like a lead balloon. And probably get her thrown into the asylum for mentally damaged ninja.

The rest of the Akatsuki she'd had the pleasure of meeting earlier were sitting a small clearing with their chakra masked. Deidara and Kisame were leaning against a huge tree, the blonde tucked deep into his cloak to ward off the chill. Itachi was standing at the edge of the clearing and to Sakura's Uchiha trained eye looked rather tense. Kakazu had heard their approach and was giving their direction a look that was part anger and part resignation. When they landed he transferred it onto her.

"Look, this is all his idea," she pointed at the unrepentant priest, "so stop looking at me like that."

Kakazu didn't seem taken aback that she had accurately guessed that he wasn't terribly happy about having an enemy kunoichi tagging along. Instead he rolled his eyes and moved a deathly glare onto the priest. He couldn't really blame the girl, Hidan was incredibly annoying and she was right, it was all his fault. Things were usually Hidan's fault; too many should-be fatal hits in the head had obviously damaged the part of his brain which dealt with things like _thinking ahead_ and _not letting his dick make decisions_. Kakazu reckoned Kisame and Deidara were developing a soft spot for the hard edged woman and this, added to Hidan's rampant hard on for her, had made them come to the conclusion that they would keep her with them for the time being.

His suspicions were confirmed when the two of them smiled at her and seemed very pleased to get a rather shy smile in return. Itachi merely nodded at her before turning his gaze back out into the forest. There was an awkward few seconds of silence before Sakura asked what the hell was going on in a whisper. Hidan suddenly found the night sky very interesting when four disbelieving glares were sent his way for having not told Sakura before dragging her along.

"What, you just came without knowing why yeah?" Deidara seemed the most shocked.

"Hey I asked! But he said we didn't have time to dick around. I wanted to stay in bed, hell I wanted to stay in bed more than anything but I didn't think he'd fuck off if I said so. Besides he said there was trouble and to be honest I'd rather be with you than against you in this shitty backwater."

Kisame had to restrain a laugh, "I never thought I would hear a leaf say that."

Sakura shrugged, "Discretion is the better part of valour, 'specially around folk who can fuck you up without even trying."

Itachi suppressed a smirk, they were obviously teaching pragmatism back in Konoha nowadays. Hidan and Kisame preened slightly, obviously enjoying being recognised as dangerous to someone they were beginning to respect. Kakazu appreciated her logic, something that was severely lacking in most of the Akatsuki.

Sakura was about to prod the men into answering her when someone appeared out of the tree behind her causing her to leap across the clearing, pulling a kunai out as she went, almost slamming into the massive bulk of Kisame.

The huge plant on Zetsu's head snapped open to reveal his manically pointed teeth as he grinned in delight. Time had lessened the impact of his sudden appearances for the rest of the organisation so it was fun for him to have someone to scare. Well, someone that he wasn't going to have to dispose of straight away. His black side debated disappearing into the ground in order to see if he could get her to react even better but it was overruled by his white side who wanted to report to the group. The rest of them (excluding Itachi and Kakazu, obviously) were in paroxysms of silent laughter as Sakura fought to get her heart rate under control.

She only just resisted the urge to punch Kisame in the arm as he was closest. "You guys are all dicks." This caused them to laugh even harder but having to keep quiet resulted in some odd snorting noises. She looked at the frightening sight of the monochrome man. "That was totally uncalled for."

Zetsu bowed slightly having the best manners out of the whole organisation. "I apologise kunoichi. _**Zetsu smells your fear.**_ Uchiha and his team-mates are heading in the direction of the inn; they should be there within an hour."

Sakura looked confused, did he mean Sasuke? She, Naruto and Kakashi had given up looking for someone who obviously didn't want to be found around a year previously. She had expected Naruto to be upset when Kakashi had tentatively proposed the idea of leaving their black sheep to his own devices. However he had surprised them both by being totally relieved that neither of them wanted to go on the wild goose chases anymore. They hadn't seen hide nor hair of him for a few months previously and frankly even his boundless goodwill was beginning to wear thin. It was completely typical that the one time she was on a mission without her friend Sasuke was going to show up.

Itachi nodded at Zetsu before turning to her. "Those sound ninjas you fought in the bar managed to get a message to Sasuke. I don't think they knew you but they recognised Hidan. He believes that if he finds any Akatsuki members they will somehow lead them to me. Unfortunately in this case he is correct."

Sakura shook her head. "Honestly, when we were looking for him we could never find that little shit. Now the one time Naruto isn't here he turns up." She looked around, taking in her company. "Although I suppose Naruto not being here is a good thing..."

Kisame shrugged. "Orders is orders. We don't get off on what we do or nothing."

Everyone glanced at Hidan who just shrugged and muttered about 'godless heathens' some more. Kakazu just rolled his eyes; even Kisame was getting soft around this woman and he was lying: no one enjoyed the job more than him. Zetsu's sides seemed to be warring with each other, the black side wanting to move closer to the nice smelling kunoichi while the white side wanted to leave now he had given the report. In the end Itachi made the decision for them.

"They have a kunoichi with them that can sense chakra accurately over large distances. We should keep moving." He looked around to make sure no one was going to argue. Deidara wanted to, desperately, but he just rolled his eyes and moved to take a place near Sakura and as far away from the Uchiha heir as possible. As they fell into step Sakura realised that they hadn't told her why they had brought her. Sure Sasuke would probably have tortured her to find out the location of his brother, and probably kill her for not hating him as thoroughly as she should. She debated asking but part of her really didn't want to know and in fact wanted to wake up back in the inn with this all having been a dream. Hidan took up his usual position at the back of the party; he had wanted to stay and fight because the mini-Uchiha was a little bitch and got on his tits. But, as always, he was overruled by the goddamn mortals who really couldn't be bothered dealing with them.

Sakura didn't know if she would get told off for trying to talk or not. Everyone else seemed to be quite enjoying the peace but she was feeling a little on edge. Not that anyone could blame her really; now she was in the middle of nowhere with _six_ of the most dangerous men in the world. And her childhood crush was coming to try and kill them. And Hidan was staring at her ass. Trying to distract herself she started studying the huge blue man who was running alongside her. This would probably be the closest she would ever be to these men and learning more about them was the only way she could justify not fighting them more. That is, if she managed to get out of this crazy situation alive and not mangekyou'd beyond all recognition. Kisame stood nearly two feet taller than her and the sword hanging over his shoulder was almost the same size as her. Apart from his freakish height and colouring the thing she was most interested in were the gills under his eyes. The medic in her wanted to hold him down and investigate but she reckoned that probably wouldn't end well for her.

"What you looking at kunoichi?" Kisame was giving her a funny look after catching her staring.

"Do those gills work? Like if you're under water?"

The rest of the group also gave her a funny look although most of them were wondering why they had never thought of asking this themselves. Kisame was about to answer when Itachi held up a hand which stopped them all in their tracks.

"I am certain Sasuke's companion is directing them to us. We should find a suitable place to face them." With that he altered course and moved quickly into the dense forest ahead.

Sakura didn't move, instead turning sceptically to Kisame. "How in the hell would he know that?"

Kisame shrugged. "He always seems to know when his brother is coming. Must be an Uchiha thing."

"Well how come Sasuke can't find him?"

"'Cos Sasuke sucks, yeah? He couldn't find his ass with both hands." Deidara was getting pumped for a chance to introduce the little brat to a few choice pieces of his art.

Sakura giggled at the blonde's assessment of Sasuke's skills, causing Hidan to glare fiercely at the artist, before suddenly realising something that made the giggles die in her throat.

"What's up bitch? You look like shit!" Zetsu's white half rolled his eyes at Hidan's bedside manner.

"How the fuck am I going to explain why _I'm_ hanging out with you guys?" Sakura managed to stop the panic from creeping into her voice, barely. "_'Oh hi Sasuke, just kicking back with the guy who murdered your family and wants to kill my best friend_.' I'm sure that'll go down a goddamn treat!"

The men just seemed rather amused by her little freak out. "You shouldn't be ashamed to be seen with fucking studs like us!" Hidan ran a hand through his silver hair and winked at her, getting an unimpressed glance in return.

"Why do you care what he thinks, yeah?" If Sakura didn't know better she'd think there was a hint of sulkiness in Deidara's voice.

"I don't! But I do care about what the village will say if word of this, this –" She gestured at herself and the men, "gets out! Haruno Sakura consorts with S-Class criminals; I can see the headlines now!" She was quiet for a minute before coming up with the perfect solution. "I have orders to kill him ... technically that order extends to you lot too but I can say you overpowered me or some shit, they'd believe that... We'll just kill them, right? You guys like killing, right?"

Deidara and Hidan grinned almost identical evil grins; this woman was reading their minds. Kakazu was calculating the bounties on the four man team; it would certainly be profitable and would hopefully stop the girl dancing around and wringing her hands. Zetsu's black side was eager for a little snack as there didn't seem to be any plans to eat this girl. His white side was also feeling a bit peckish. Therefore it was down to Kisame to be the voice of reason, something he was quite enjoying as it happened so rarely.

"You know Itachi won't let you kill Sasuke but I think the rest of them are fair game. 'Specially that little punk-ass son of a bitch who wants to be a swordsman."

"Why doesn't Itachi want Sasuke done in? If someone was trying to kill me all the time I'd be thrilled to have them out of the way."

"Itachi loves Sasuke." The large man paused at the disbelieving look Sakura sent his way. "Yeah ok, the torturing stuff may not appear like love on the surface but he does, honest! You should've seen the look on his face when he heard Sasuke had run off to Orochimaru; I actually thought he was going to have a stroke. He even raised his voice." This last comment, accompanied by dramatic eyebrows, was surely the most pressing piece of evidence for his case.

Sakura was still sceptical but there was no reason not to believe Kisame. Besides, there was almost no way Sasuke would get in touch with the village and name and shame her as being an Akatsuki sympathiser. Not that she was of course. This was just a temporary arrangement and she in no way liked any of them. She certainly was not enjoying their company and once they had gone their separate ways (hopefully) they could go back to mutual ignorant hatred. Satisfied with these little white lies Sakura sighed and the group began to head in the direction Itachi had left in. Now they didn't have to remain quiet Hidan began whistling a jaunty tune which Kisame quickly picked up. It wasn't long before Deidara joined in with Zetsu humming along under his breath. Sakura caught a glimpse of the half-pained, half-angry look spreading over Kakazu's features and moved further away from the Jashinist just in case the bounty hunter snapped.

Itachi had found a rather nice open space for their seemingly inevitable battle against team Hebi. Bordered by trees on three sides the remaining side was an incline that led to a shallow river, obviously chosen to play to Kisame's main strength. The Uchiha himself was perched primly on a rock waiting for them to arrive, probably annoyed by the tune. Sakura just knew it was going to be stuck in her head for the next week at least. She made her way over to a nice dry patch under a tree and sat down, fully hoping to be missed in the confusion of the fight. The rest of the group began prepping themselves for the fight. Unlike the ninjas she knew the Akatsuki didn't seem nervous to be in a pitched head to head battle. Instead they all looked excited and far more relaxed than anyone who was going to put their lives in danger had any right to be. Kisame had pulled the bandages off Samehada and was re-aligning its scales, occasionally waving it close to Hidan's head and laughing. Hidan was polishing his huge scythe and swearing at Kisame, ducking to avoid the chakra stealing sword. Kakazu was meditating, his threads occasionally coming out from various parts of his body and waggling around before retreating back into him. Itachi had also retreated into himself, his red-eyes staring blankly ahead, probably in the direction that Sasuke would arrive from. Deidara had opened his clay bags and kept creating little models, usually his famous birds, before breaking them down and starting over again. Zetsu had half melted into the tree next to Deidara until only his gold eyes were visible.

Sakura couldn't decide whether to prepare herself, if she was lucky she might even be able to slip away while the rest of them were busy. However judging by her luck recently there was no chance of this at all. She began idly coating a few senbon with a particularly nasty poison pulled from her medic apron. Even she wasn't as nervous as she probably should have been. It was certainly the oddest feeling in the world to actually feel safer being in the middle of the Akatsuki. She was feeling really tired though, sitting on the ground leaning against a rough tree should not have been the comfiest she had been in nearly a week (excluding the five minutes she'd been allowed to sleep at the inn). Shaking her head slightly to clear her fatigue she reached into her apron and crunched a soldier pill. It was just as well she had, because as she felt the energy flow through her veins, Deidara suddenly swore loudly cradling his right shoulder.

Hidan had jumped to avoid a jab from Kisame and pulled his scythe with him. Deidara had been so absorbed in his art he wasn't paying attention and hadn't moved quickly enough to avoid getting cut by the huge blades.

"Sorry man, blame fish-dick though."

Kisame looked quite offended, "Wasn't my fault, you shit! You're the one who –"

It quickly descended into an argument that drew the other members in. Sakura just rolled her eyes and wandered over, still avoiding Itachi's stare. Grabbing Deidara's arm she pulled the dark fabric of his cloak out of the cut before deciding it was clean enough to seal with a touch of her green chakra. She didn't realise that this gesture had stopped the argument and the other men were staring at her strangely. Deidara looked especially confused but there was a hint of gratitude in his eyes that she picked up on.

Hidan rolled his eyes, rubbing Deidara's blood off his scythe with a soft cloth. "It was just a scratch bitch, jeez."

"Whatever, Sasuke's tried to kill me the last four times we've seen each other. You guys might be fucked up but I'd take you over him any day." Sakura rubbed her thumb over Deidara's shoulder, the perfectionist in her wanting to make sure it was done properly.

"You're pretty fucked up too if you think we're less dangerous than him." Kisame had his head cocked to one side, obviously trying to figure out the strange girl.

"It's not me, it's this situation! Talk about a rock and a hard place right now..." Everyone turned to glare at Hidan who had opened his mouth to make a pun.

Itachi suddenly tensed, causing all the rest of them to do so too. It was very obvious why as not more than thirty seconds later Sasuke and his team came barrelling out of the trees. There was a tense few beats of silence as they measured each other up and Sasuke tried to figure out what his old team-mate was doing standing in the middle of a group of Akatsuki...

R/R


	3. Chapter 3

Well, sorry it's so late. I could make loads of excuses (and they're all totally valid!) but who the hell cares! This has taken on a bit of a life of its own so there will be more to come ... eventually! I don't own anything , obviously.

XXX

"I swear to God Karin, if you don't shut the fuck up I'm gonna smack the shit out of you!"

"Fuck you Suigetsu! I don't know why Sasuke-kun puts up with you!"

"Puts up with _me_? I think you need to take a fucking step back and actually _look _at yourself, you stupid bitch!"

Juugo pressed his fingers together and gave his leader a rather worried look. Even though Sasuke was walking several feet in front of them he could almost see the vein sticking out of his head from here. Karin and Suigetsu had been arguing for at least the last mile and a half despite their leader's sky-rocketing blood pressure. Sasuke had been moodier than usual recently due to the lack of any news on the whereabouts of his brother and had been driving them extremely hard. Suigetsu had of course suggested that he just needed laid and privately Juugo agreed with him. Just so long as he didn't sleep with Karin, she was insufferable enough as it was.

Sasuke suddenly stopped in the middle of the path, his back ramrod straight. Juugo flinched, bracing himself to leap out of the way of any attacks their leader might direct at the arguing pair. The arguing pair who weren't bright enough to notice he'd stopped and may be planning to murder them in a fit of rage. However it wasn't Karin and Suigetsu that the Uchiha was focussed on but the sound of voices from up ahead. It was the middle of the night in what could generously be described as a shitty part of the country so there was a good chance that whoever owned the voices were up to no good. Of course Team Hebi's idea of what was 'no good' was different to most but still, they might have to fight. Actually Juugo hoped they would, Sasuke could take out his anger on their opponents rather than his, well _friends_ was a stretch, but certainly team-mates.

Unfortunately for the large man the voices turned out to belong to three sound ninjas. Well two, as one was lying completely unconscious while his friends bickered about how best to treat his multiple injuries. It was an understatement to say that Sasuke was well-known among sound ninjas and so when he approached, vein still visible even though Karin and Suigetsu had shut up, the colour drained from their faces so fast Juugo thought they might faint. Things didn't get any better for them when he came over, he would have towered over them had they been standing but kneeling as they were he may as well have been a giant. Juugo was no expert but even he could tell that the bandages they'd been applying round their leader's broken ribs were far too tight and while Sasuke got their attention he knelt down and began trying to fix it.

Things had really gone from bad to worse for the sound ninjas. Not only had they been beaten up by a deceptively slender girl and her mad suitor but now they were facing _the_ Uchiha Sasuke and his team with their most skilled member unconscious. There were few times when having a crushed arm and smashed torso was preferable to the present situation but both couldn't help feeling incredibly jealous of their leader before all room for feeling was taken up by fear.

Sasuke looked over the two frightened men, only enjoying their reactions a little. Karin and Suigetsu had finally shut up and he could hear himself think again. These three must have run into someone reasonably powerful as not only they totally disabled the obvious leader but had scared the other two into not joining in the fray. The idea of it being his brother was remote, Itachi would never do something as lowbrow as give a physical beating unless his opponent was dangerous. Might have been Kisame though, there was nothing the huge shark-man enjoyed more than beating the shit out of people who annoyed him. And frankly they were starting to annoy Sasuke, he had asked who had done this at least twenty seconds ago and they hadn't pulled themselves together enough to answer. Hoping to hear something about the infamous mist-nin but expecting to hear some local thug he was not at all prepared for what he heard.

"Well," the ninja swallowed down a huge terror lump in his throat. "There was this pink-haired chick..."

Sasuke, who had been assessing the road ahead, snapped his head round so fast the silent clearing heard the vertebrae in his neck click. The rest of his team instantly snapped to attention, wondering what the hell had set him off. Especially Karin as it seemed to be about another girl.

The sound-nin figured he'd better continue, "And leader liked the look of her so he tries to grab her but she just ..." He trailed off as he remembered the unimpressed look on her face as she ruined leader's arm. He gestured at the prone body and drew Sasuke's attention to the limb, lying at a funny angle and painful even to look at.

Juugu looked rather impressed. "Did she do all this too?" he waved his hands over the ribs he was rebinding.

Sasuke was incredibly interested in the answer. The Sakura he knew didn't like hurting people who didn't deserve it. She was a real Konoha bleeding heart of the sort completely absent from Sound. She, Naruto and Kakashi had finally stopped following him around trying to get him to come home after around the fifth time he tried to kill them. He had barely heard anything of them in over a year, except from the odd trickle down pieces of information that said Naruto would be the next Hokage, Sakura was a well-known medic and Kakashi had seen every screening of the latest Icha Icha movie for three days in a row over in Tea Country. To be honest he was rather relieved but at the same time there was a niggling feeling of resentment that they were getting on with their lives while he certainly was not.

"No ... there was this mental guy, silver hair and fucking insane grin, man. Appeared out of fucking nowhere and wrecked leader's shit up."

"Hidan" breathed Sasuke. He'd heard rumours about the priest: that he couldn't be killed and sacrificed people to a bad-ass god but he didn't know how much of that was bullshit. And why was he talking to Sakura? "What was he doing?"

"Trying to get in the girl's knickers." The other nin had finally found his voice.

Karin scoffed. As far as she was concerned the only girl men should want to get into the knickers of was herself. Suigetsu rolled his eyes hard enough to see the inside of his head.

Juugo stood up and announced he was finished while Sasuke finished grilling them about where the bar was. As soon as they had finished speaking Sasuke was off, leaving the rest of his team in the dust as he raced off hoping to find a lead on his brother and also why Hidan wanted to shag his old team-mate. He left so quickly he completely missed the figure blended into the tree at the side of the road who had heard everything and slipped away to inform the rest of the Akatsuki.

XXXXX

Sakura could feel the artist almost vibrating with excitement at being face to face with the inferior Uchiha as Sasuke was known around the organisation. Hidan was grinning the ridiculous grin that Sakura assumed was linked to hurting people and/or trying to seduce her. In fact all of the Akatsuki seemed to be enjoying themselves while Sasuke looked horrified, Juugo and Suigetsu looked wary and Karin looked bored.

The silence was infinitely more tense than the one in the bar a few hours previously. Sakura wilted slightly, had that only been a few hours? It felt like an ice age ago. Eventually Itachi broke the tense standoff by walking to the centre of the group and addressing his brother in a very polite manner.

"Good morning, Sasuke-kun. What brings you here?"

Sakura looked at him funny, was this always how battles to the death started? Kisame was clearly pressing his lips together to stop himself from smirking so maybe Itachi was acting dumb on purpose. If there was something people expected of Itachi it was that he was super clever. Deidara just rolled his eyes, further confirming her suspicions.

Sasuke couldn't quite force his face to stop with the look of horror it had adopted. He was totally torn, question his old team-mate who he could admit didn't look thrilled to be where she was or try to kill his brother when he was backed up by another five S-Class criminals. And maybe Sakura, he would have to find out. God he was going in circles.

Itachi regarded the internal battle going on inside his little brother and rather wished that he wasn't so directly related to someone who thought a shirt without a front was a good fashion idea. He could just feel Deidara's smirk, especially when Sasuke didn't seem capable of closing his mouth all the way.

Hidan just wanted to get killing, that red-haired bitch had the nerve to eye him up! Contrary to popular belief Hidan didn't fuck anything that moved. He actually had rather high standards that meant he never did it with skanks. Now Sakura on the other hand... Kakazu elbowed the priest in the stomach when he realised Hidan was staring at Sakura with something of a rapist-like expression and it was freaking her out.

Itachi reached up to brush some imaginary lint off his shoulder while he waited for Sasuke to pull himself together. Sakura seemed to be coping well with this rather difficult situation. Having her here seemed to be causing his little brother the expected amount of discomfort and it was making Hidan far less obnoxious than usual as he tried to impress her. If it weren't for the fact she wouldn't leave Konoha he would consider the idea of keeping her around. Might lower their expenses if Kakazu could stop destroying things to clear his anger at the priest.

His musings were cut short when his brother finally managed to form some words.

"What!"

Well ok, only one word, but Itachi felt it was progress none the less. Sasuke was flicking his eyes rapidly between Itachi and Sakura, causing a twitch to develop in his forehead.

"What is the matter, Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke gritted his teeth. He hated it when his brother played dumb. Somehow it managed to make everyone else look stupid instead of him.

"What are you doing with her?" Sasuke's tone did nothing to help soothe Sakura's ruffled feathers and she began glaring at him.

Itachi slowly turned to look over the group behind him before turning back to Sasuke with a completely innocent expression. "You mean Sakura?"

Sasuke willed away the aneurism building in his head and counted to five. "Yes."

"Well Sakura, why don't you tell him?"

"Tell him what? We had the shitty bad luck to be at the same place at the same time!"

"I wouldn't call it _bad_ luck..." Hidan smiled brightly but only received exasperated noises in return.

"Where's the dobe? Kakashi?" Sasuke wondered if anything had happened to them, judging by Hidan's leering he wouldn't be surprised if he'd got rid of them to get to Sakura.

"Dunno, I was on a solo mission," Sakura let a trickle of pride enter her voice.

"Doing what?"

"Classified, sorry."

"Something stupid then," Sasuke curled his lip; Konoha wouldn't send Sakura on something important.

"Classified means classified, dickhead! If I can't even tell Naruto I sure as hell can't tell traitors or insane criminals." Sasuke couldn't keep the shock off his face when she swore at him causing the Akatsuki to smirk at him in an irritating fashion.

"Goddamn bitch, call him a dickhead again..."

"We're not insane, yeah," Deidara sounded quite affronted.

Sakura gave him a very pointed look, before looking at his explosive clay that had levelled many a village. Deidara's eyebrows shot into his hair: that was art!

"So why are you with them?" Juugo interrupted pleasantly, the girl reminded him of someone but he couldn't think who.

"When I figure that out, I'll let you know."

"It's because –"

"Goddamnit Hidan, will you just shut the hell up!" Kakazu thought Hidan was fucking lucky that he was at the other side of the clearing.

Hidan was starting to look murderous so Itachi felt it was better to direct everyone's attention back to the real matter at hand. "So I suppose you're here to kill me little brother?"

_Finally!_ Sasuke thought privately, this situation was too surreal; it was nice to back to what he knew. He dropped into a fighting crouch, pulling out his sword and pumping chakra to his sharingan. Sakura tensed up, readying her own chakra in case she was caught in the crossfire.

Suigetsu stepped forward, an irritating grin spreading over his face. "I'll be taking that sword today Kisame..." He let the threat hang in the air supposing it made him appear more intimidating. He was used to the bored look that passed over the huge man's face but his ego was not at all prepared for the pretty medic to look between them and give _him_ a 'what the fuck?' look. Kisame smiled indulgently down at Sakura, she was definitely good for a huge blue shark man's self esteem.

Juugo would much rather not be involved, perhaps he could sit this one out. Judging by the weary expression on the face of the bounty hunter and the plant-man maybe they could work something out while everyone else tried to kill each other. Sadly the same couldn't be said for the mad priest who was obviously hoping for either Karin or himself to say something to start a fight.

Karin was too busy watching Sasuke, still crouched in front of his standing brother as they sized one another up. She had never actually seen Itachi in person but no one could beat her Sasuke-kun. Relaxing slightly she looked the silver haired hot stuff, not as good as Sasuke or his good looking brother obviously but hot none the less. Unfortunately he seemed far more interested in this Sakura girl who Sasuke seemed to know. Interested in a frighteningly obsessed kind of way, but interested none the less.

Sasuke was pacing around his brother, trying to identify an opening and growling obscenities under his breath. Itachi was investigating a bug that had landed on his sleeve. Suigetsu was jumping around Kisame, trying to confuse him with his quick movements. Kisame was trying to get at an itch on his back. As the other two members of Sasuke's team didn't seem to be moving Deidara motioned to Sakura that they should join Zetsu at the edge of the clearing. When Sakura grinned and nodded Hidan went to hit the artist over the head. A little scuffling, soon joined by the bounty hunter, saw them reach Zetsu who had kindly swept the wet leaves off the dead branch he was perched on. Juugo watched this with interest whereas Karin's attention had been thoroughly captured by Sasuke crouching right in front of her which had pulled his trousers tight over his ass.

Now that they didn't have to worry so much about friendly fire (well, about not hitting Sakura) Itachi and Kisame finally straightened up to take the match seriously. Sasuke and Suigetsu stopped moving to try and get a better reading of what their opponents were thinking. Kisame still hadn't stopped smirking, and hadn't even taken Samehada from where it was resting on his shoulder. Itachi was staring into space again.

The tense moment (the millionth of the night, Sakura estimated) was ruined once again by Hidan.

"7000¥ on Kisame!"

"10000¥!" Kakazu said, having suddenly forgotten his irritation with the priest when the chance to part him from his money came up.

"10000¥ for me too!" Deidara pulled out a wad of money from the interior of his clay bag.

"It's hardly betting if we all think the same thing!" Sakura laughed.

"You think Kisame's definitely gonna come out on top, yeah?"

"Come on, look at that guy, he's like Kisame's dorky little brother."

"_**He's scrawny, not at all tasty."**_

"...That too."

"As much as it fucking pains me to say this, seriously, I'm putting my money on red-eyes senior too." Hidan had no worries about revealing that he kept his money in the handle of his scythe, quite a lot of it too, Sakura noticed.

"I have noticed some minor improvements in Sasuke's skills." Zetsu's white side answered as the black side was too busy mentally separating Suigetsu's body into the tasty and not tasty.

"Bet he still sucks, yeah."

Sakura giggled and found herself wishing that she'd brought more money so she could join in. Unfortunately payday was only when she got back to Konoha, assuming that Hidan, currently sliding his arm round her shoulders, let her go. Deidara pouted slightly when he noticed that Sakura rolled her eyes at the oldest move in the book but made no effort to remove the Jashinist's arm.

They were so caught up in debating the money difference between dismemberment and merely maiming of Sasuke and Suigetsu they didn't notice that the four fighters were staring at them until Kisame coughed loudly.

"What? How come that little shit isn't it pieces yet, Gills? I got money riding on this!"

Sasuke was back to looking horrified as Sakura casually bantered about how badly Itachi was going to beat him. Whatever happened to the girl who thought he was the best thing since sliced bread? Suigestu was starting to sulk that no one wanted to bet on him. Juugo was trying to work out how much he could get if he was to win any of these bets. Travelling with Sasuke didn't leave much time for luxuries; maybe he could get some actual food rather than trail-mix?

Kisame rolled his eyes and took advantage of Suigetsu's inattention by bashing him in the head hard enough to knock him out. Sasuke just turned his head and watched as his comrade fell down on the spot. Karin and Juugo felt their jaws drop open as Kisame inspected his handy-work by rolling over the younger man with his foot. Sakura couldn't help it, she could blame lack of sleep and fear but she was having a great time, she hooted along with her two handsome companions and laughed aloud at the look on Sasuke's face. Kisame smirked smugly, that little son of a bitch was going to have one hell of a headache in the morning. Zetsu and Kakazu were smirking also but managing not to break out into laughter and shouting like their younger friends.

"Fuck YEAH Kisame! You show that little shit!" Hidan was taking advantage of the excitement to pull Sakura closer to him, just resisting the urge to smell her hair again.

"Guess we all win then, yeah?" Deidara had also taken advantage of the excitement to cover Sakura's hand with his.

Itachi's expression barely changed but it was plain to see the amusement at his little brother's predicament on his face. Keeping an eye on Sasuke he turned to look at the other members of his brother's little group. Still-slack jawed; no wonder they followed his ridiculous otouto around. Unfortunately Sasuke seemed rather quiet. This was not a good sign as usually he was mouthing off about murdering him and revenge and so on and so forth. Silence meant he was plotting. Sure his plots never got much further than the aforementioned revenge business and occasionally running off to insane paedophiles but they could still be annoying.

Sasuke was plotting and his plot was to hurt Sakura in the hope it would shake his brother up enough to fight. Something in his long-buried consciousness told him not to, that she had always had faith in him, etc etc but he was excellent at ignoring sound advice. However as he leaped towards her, sword drawn, he was not expecting what happened.

Sakura saw his movement out of the corner of her eye as she faced Hidan and she reacted purely on instinct. Her hand came out of Deidara's, chakra gathered in her fist, and she punched the former love of her life right in the face. With so much power behind it he flew backwards through the trees, crashing into anything in his path and causing a huge amount of destruction.

There was another, rather longer, awkward silence as all heads turned very slowly from where Sasuke had disappeared to her. Sakura bit her lip and avoided Itachi's eyes, if what Kisame had said was true he would surely be pissed that she had just fucked Sasuke's shit up.

Deidara was in love. He'd never seen anything like this woman! Such power! No wonder Sasori had bought it!

Hidan had descended into a lust induced semi-coma.

Kisame, Kakazu and Zetsu were all of a sudden very thankful they hadn't done anything to piss Sakura off in the time she'd been with them.

Itachi made the decision that she was going to be brought back to the Akatsuki, trifling things like village loyalty be damned. For the first time in a long time he felt like cursing. Holy Shit.

"Oh God, I didn't ... I mean he was coming and ..." Sakura sounded a little panicked, not noticing how the amount of respect the Akatsuki had for her had just sky-rocketed.

"Goddamn ... just ... Goddamn ..." Hidan couldn't even form full sentences, his brain was too busy figuring out how to get her to marry him, or fuck him to death, whichever she was most up for.

"Fucking hell, pinky, remind me not to meet you on a dark night!" Kisame started laughing, his deep bass laugh soothing her slightly.

Sakura wrung her hands, still refusing to look at the older Uchiha, "do you think he'll be ok?"

"Who the fuck cares, yeah? That was _the_ best thing I've ever fucking seen!" Deidara had grabbed her wrist, a little shy of her actual hand now he'd seen what it was capable of.

Karin had fainted clean away after seeing Sasuke dispatched so easily. Juugo had unfortunately been too preoccupied to catch her. Suddenly he was the only conscious one in a group of the deadliest people on earth. Gulping slightly he bowed, especially to Sakura, and gathering up his two closest team-mates he ran off in the direction Sasuke had disappeared. The Akatsuki barely noticed him go.

"Sakura." Itachi's voice was low and she winced. "You won't be going back to your village."

Sakura jumped up, shrugging off Hidan's arm and Deidara's grip much to their disappointment.

"What? Why?"

"We're going to keep you." Itachi smiled pleasantly, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

"FUCK YEAH!" For once Hidan and Deidara agreed, loudly, on something before glaring at each other like riled tom cats.

Sakura's legs trembled and she had to sit down all of a sudden.

"What?"

XXX

R/R


	4. Chapter 4

Well, sorry for the long wait guys but unfortunately real life and especially 12,000 word dissertations get in the way of things like this! This isn't a great chapter but it's been like pulling goddamn teeth to get it written. There will more than likely be another long wait til the next chapter because, well, other shit to do, you know? Thanks for all the reviews, you've all been grand!

XXXXX

Kakashi couldn't shake off a bad feeling. It had settled down between his shoulder blades the previous evening and still hadn't gone away. However it wasn't until breakfast the next morning that he pin-pointed what the likely cause was. Naruto and Sai were arguing. This of itself could hardly be considered unusual; Naruto wasn't bright enough to keep up with Sai's sharp wit and could only retaliate with volume. Today Naruto was bright red in the face and almost shrieking with indignation because Sai was embarrassing him in front of Hinata.

"I was not peeping into the men's changing room! Goddamnit Sai you just wish I wanted to look at you!"

The resulting argument had dragged in the other patrons including Hinata's disgruntled older cousin. This was unusual, on a normal day Sakura would have flicked them in the head hard enough to knock all the argue out of them for at least an hour. She certainly wouldn't let Sai mouth off to Neji this early in the morning when the genius' temper was notoriously short.

"Naruto, no one gives a damn whatever the hell is in your trousers except that freak. Now shut the hell up so I can finish my damn breakfast!"

Yes Sakura definitely didn't allow them to argue especially after the day she'd wasted opening up chakra points the Hyuuga had closed in a fit of pique. Pulling his bowl of ramen back to avoid a misplaced napkin ball Kakashi leaned back in his chair and considered why he had a bad feeling about Sakura. She'd mentioned she was leaving on a solo mission a few days ago but he hadn't been worried then. Solo missions were usually dangerous; he should know he did them all the time. She wasn't due back for another two days but the feeling was there and it was almost never wrong. Surreptitiously checking the others were still fighting he quickly pulled down his mask and inhaled his food, maybe he'd go see the Hokage.

XXXXX

"She's going to be super pissed with us..." Hidan glanced at the unconscious woman being carried on Kisame's broad shoulder.

"It was for the best."

"Yeah, well you can explain why knocking her out with your freaky-ass eye powers was for the best, little red-eye."

"Maybe she'll calm down after she beats the shit out of you, yeah?" Deidara hoped so, so desperately hoped so.

"How come I'm carrying her? If she wakes up I don't want to be the first thing she sees."

"Trust me fishy, no one wants you to be the first thing they see when they wake up."

"Fuck you Hidan."

Kakazu feared he was in danger of losing his teeth with how hard he was grinding them. "How far to the campsite?"

"Are we gonna like, tie her to a tree when we get there? You know, just in case?"

"And have her bring a fucking tree down on us?"

Itachi paused, considering this, "I think it would be prudent to keep her unconscious until we return to the base."

"You're scared of her aren't you?"

"No."

"Don't fucking lie! Lying is a sin!"

"No one cares about your shitty religion Hidan."

Hidan stopped walking immediately causing Kisame to walk into the back of him with a grunt. Deidara rolled his eyes, he should have just taken his bird back; with Sakura obviously. He might have even offered Kisame a lift if the clay could take that much weight. Itachi, who had been leading the way like usual, noticed that the constant irritating volume behind him was decreasing and realised the others had stopped. Kakazu looked unrepentant over his remark despite the barely contained rage making the priest shake.

"You shut the hell up heathen!"

Kisame jumped back to avoid the swinging scythe that was now pointed at the bounty hunter. Sakura groaned as her ride's shoulder jammed into her solar plexus. This immediately distracted Hidan as well as Kisame who froze, hoping whatever Itachi did was going to hold. Itachi looked rather put out (a slight tightening of the lips) that the rest had so little faith in his abilities.

After a tense few seconds Sakura still seemed to be out of it and the argument over Hidan's religion continued, albeit in muted whispers with more filthy hand gestures. Itachi gave them two minutes then gave both a very pointed look and they all began travelling again.

The silence lasted just long enough for Kakazu to start relaxing.

"Do you think she can cook?"

"Can't be any worse than Itachi, yeah?"

"My cooking is satisfactory."

"What a fucking crock o' shit! Your cooking's come closer to killing me than the fucking beheadings, seriously!"

"I could've nearly handled the fact I had to live on the throne for a week if you'd managed to make it taste good."

"Word, fishy, that stew tasted like char-grilled ass."

"I fail to see how you would know what 'ass' tastes like."

"It's simple, red-eye, unlike you I actually get some."

Kakazu wondered, in between idle fantasies of dismembering Hidan, where Zetsu had slithered off to. Between arguing and rampant hormones everyone else probably hadn't noticed, except the Uchiha maybe, the know-it-all little prick. It wasn't often he was envious of the unconscious but this kunoichi had it easy, she didn't have to listen to these idiots.

XXXXX

Years of Kakashi's entrances meant that Tsunade didn't even flinch when he suddenly appeared at the window behind her.

"What do you want Hatake? Unless I called you in here and you're so late I'd forgotten." Goddamn this request should have been dealt with days ago; the Daimo was going to be pissed.

"When is Sakura due back from her mission?" Kakashi's practiced lounging posture gave nothing of his edginess away.

Tsunade was calculating how much of the microscopic budget could be stretched to accommodate the building of a new wing for the academy and could only manage, "Hmm?"

From the safety of behind her back Kakashi rolled his eyes. Most wouldn't even dream of being disrespectful to this woman but Kakashi's few pleasures consisted of living life on the edge and irritating his higher-ups.

"Sakura? Her mission? When's she back."

Tsunade placed a signed document on the much smaller pile and turned in her chair, "She should be back the day after tomorrow, why?" Her golden eyes narrowed, immediately seeing through his relaxed facade, the one normally on his face when he had a kunai in the ribs but didn't want to go to the hospital.

Kakashi sighed internally; he was obviously losing his touch if his worry was that easy to read. Hanging around with the moron twins, whose problems with the finer points of human interaction were well documented, was blunting his deception skills. After all it had only taken a worried look to convince Naruto that the screaming coming from Genma's flat meant the lecherous jounin was in serious trouble and Naruto should barge right in there to help.

Smirking at that memory he realised Tsunade was looking at him with a raised eyebrow and an expression that told him he'd better get on with it. "I just have a bad feeling..." he trailed off smiling, reaching up to the rub the back of his neck.

Tsunade's first instinct was to snort and tell him to go bother someone else. However Kakashi was hardly an over-emotional and irrational shinobi; if he had a bad feeling, and was actually telling her about it, it must be bad. She looked out of the window and chewed her lip. Sakura had sent a message to say her mission was concluded the previous night but not one to say she was on her way home. But this mission had been hard so maybe she was sleeping in? It was only morning still; there was no need to panic straight away. Slapping her hand down on the desk, Tsunade decided there was only one thing for it.

"Shizune! Get me a scratch-card! And more sake!"

XXXXX

When Zetsu returned to the camp the others had made he was rather pleasantly surprised by the quiet. Even Kakazu was looking more relaxed than he had previously. Hidan was asleep, the obvious explanation for the near silence. The kunoichi was still unconscious which was probably for the best. He didn't know an awful lot about women but he did know they tended to get high-pitched and screechy when annoyed. Being kidnapped by men who were a) wanted criminals and b) wanting to get into her knickers would annoy anyone.

Kisame noticed his arrival first, which showed that Itachi was almost completely out of it. Kisame would bet money that Itachi's hormones were developing on being in close contact with a woman and he was going to go through all the stages of puberty in a night. Didn't think he would look right with facial hair though, tipped the scale from evil to evil magician. Kakazu thought there was obviously some brain wasting illness going around.

When Zetsu had settled down and helped himself to what was probably Hidan's portion of the food Deidara finally broke the silence.

"Come on then, yeah? Where were you?"

"Leader-san summoned me."

Deidara almost wished Hidan would wake up; there were only so many one word answers a guy could take. "What did he say, yeah? You tell him about Sakura?"

Zetsu chewed thoughtfully on an unidentifiable lump in his broth, "I did."

Deidara gave him an extremely unimpressed look when it was clear he wasn't going to continue and considered an exploding spider to hurry him along. Recognising this Kisame decided to step in before their reasonably restful camp was ruined.

"Was he pissed?"

"His exact words were 'what the fuck do those absolute cretins think they're doing'."

Kisame winced, he'd thought as much. Pein didn't often take well to the more outrageous actions of his organisation and this was pretty close to the top of the list. "Did you tell him she's a top class medic and she could lay a beat down that would make the Mizukage piss himself?"

"I did. _**Only in a less stupid way**_."

Itachi finally looked up from the fire before blinking owlishly at Zetsu as if he hadn't realised he was there. "Did you say she's close to the Kyuubi?"

Zetsu smirked, "It was my ace, you're allowed to keep her."

Deidara and Kisame high-fived, almost knocking Itachi over and waking up Hidan. Kakazu rolled his eyes. Hidan had his scythe halfway ready to fuck up whatever had disturbed his sleep before realising it was just Zetsu.

"Leader-san says we can keep Sakura, yeah!" Hidan took a moment before jumping up with a whoop to high five the other two.

Itachi righted himself with a disdainful sniff and doing his best to ignore the mini-celebration going on behind him. Zetsu spat out something hard and chewy before speaking, "You know Konoha will retaliate?"

Kisame rolled his eyes, "Hope they send that fuckin' freak with the bowl cut, he needs a good beating."

"Maito Guy is very powerful." Those hormones couldn't develop fast enough where Itachi was concerned, might get the stick out of his ass if he actually thought about girls once in a while.

"Naw, they'll send Hatake definitely. I've got a little exploding surprise just for that bastard, yeah."

Kakazu pulled out his rolled up stack of bounty posters, this Guy character wasn't among them but Kakashi certainly was, and for quite a pretty penny too. Maybe kidnapping the girl wasn't such a mistake after all. Hidan rolled his eyes at the ¥ signs appearing in Kakazu's eyes.

"It shouldn't matter who they send, it is very unlikely they will pick up our trail."

"You alright there Itachi? Pretty sure you just used a contraction." Kisame mimed feeling the unimpressed Uchiha's forehead while the rest smirked.

"Well what if they do? They sure as hell aren't just gonna go 'you seem like good bastards, take care of her will ya?' are they?"

"They will try and kill you. _**It will be very amusing.**_"

"I'm more worried what _she's_ gonna do to us, yeah?"

"I sure as hell know what I hope will happen." Hidan put his hands behind his head and grinned lecherously to himself

"We, the men who want to suck the soul out of her best friend and murder the vast majority of the people she cares about, have kidnapped her and are taking her back to live with us. She'll more'n likely rip it right off."

"I know." The grin widened.

"You're a sick fuck, yeah?"

Itachi looked perplexed, sort of. "Rip what off?"

The others looked at him for a good few seconds before sharing a glance that was half-amused and half-exasperated.

Kisame shook his head, "You'll find out when you're older."

XXXXX

Tsunade and Kakashi were also sharing a look at this moment, but it was a hell of a lot more worried. Ten scratch cards lay face up on the table; Tsunade had won a decent amount ... off every card.

"Well, shit!"

XXXXX

A day and half later the Akatsuki trooped into the base. Nerves were rather frayed after the long period of time in each other's company with no alcohol and Hidan seemed to have borne the brunt with a broken cheek and a rampant black-eye.

"You guys are all dicks."

"If you could keep your fucking mouth shut we wouldn't have these problems!"

Pein heard their bickering from down the hall. He looked slightly mournfully at his new half-read paperback; he'd been enjoying the peace. Catching Konan's eye they swept down to where the rest of the members were standing all up in each other's business. The new kunoichi had been propped up against the wall to free up Kisame's ass-whooping arm. They were so intent on hurting each other some more they didn't notice their leader's approach.

"What are you cretins doing now?" Pein snickered internally as the five men sprang apart looking terrified and a bit sheepish.

Kakazu and Hidan cast each other burning glares, as did Deidara and Itachi. Kisame shrugged, putting out a foot to stop Sakura sliding sideways and hitting her head on the floor.

Pein nodded towards her, "Remind me again why the hell I'm allowing you to bring an enemy kunoichi in here?"

"She's fucking wonderful, seriously!"

"She's kick-ass, yeah!"

"She is awesome, you should've seen her take out Sasuke, it was fucking poetry."

"She has skills that we will find useful."

Everyone paused to give Itachi an unimpressed look.

Pein looked at Kakazu who wasn't frothing at the mouth about her. "She stops Hidan being as fucking obnoxious, mostly."

Konan's eyebrows shot into her hair, high praise indeed. "How long has she been unconscious?"

"Two days, she would've fucked our shit up otherwise, yeah?"

Pein rubbed his eyes; he just knew he was going to regret this. "Put her in one of the high-security cells. Itachi, I'm making her your responsibility."

"What? How come the dickless-wonder gets all the fun? I saw her first!"

"He's the least likely to do something stupid. Now stop arguing and come to the common room, I've got updated mission specs for you all."

Hidan continued grumbling under his breath as Kisame and Itachi carted Sakura off to the basement.

XXXXX

"She should've checked in with Temari's outpost at least a day ago." Tsunade had abandoned sitting behind her desk and had taken up pacing in front of the window.

Kakashi sitting on the windowsill again, this time not bothering to pretend he wasn't worried. "We should send someone out."

"Genma's on his way back from a mission in the same area; I've sent a message for him to check it out. The reply should be on its way back now if he hasn't been distracted."

The tense wait was interrupted when Naruto burst in through the door, seemingly oblivious to the worried atmosphere.

"'Sup baa-chan! Oh hey Kakashi-sensei, you here to get her to give us a new mission too?"

Tsunade and Kakashi shared a look, should they tell Naruto they thought his best friend was maybe missing? He would totally over-react and go running off like a knight in shining armour and more than likely get himself killed. Still it wasn't something they could keep from him.

"Here's a mission for you, idiot, go fetch Sai and bring him back here, Yamato too!"

Naruto whooped obviously thinking there was going to be some kick-ass dangerous mission that he could stick in Neji's face and rushed off. Ten minutes later he was back dragging an irritated Yamato with Sai trailing along behind them.

"Hokage-sama? Kakashi?" Yamato was not an oblivious idiot and figured out something was seriously wrong.

Tsunade sighed, trying to figure out how to explain they were worried over a missing message, a non-check in and ten winning scratch cards. She was spared when a carrier bird flew in, cheeping frantically to show it had an urgent message.

"Hey baa-chan! What's the bird want, is it our kick-ass mission? It better be, I told Kiba we were gonna get to kick ass and take names!"

Kakashi wondered just how many times Naruto would use the phrase 'kick-ass'.

Tsunade's face went white when she read the message. "Sakura's in serious trouble."

This stopped Naruto bouncing around quicker than being told there was no more ramen. Yamato shared a look with Kakashi trying to gauge how much trouble. Even Sai looked vaguely like he might be upset by this news.

"What's the message say?"

"Hokage. At Sakura's last known location. Disappeared during night. Team Hebi seen. Akatsuki seen. No trail."

"Well, shit."

XXXX

Pein suddenly stopped half-way pointing to the figures on the pie-chart. The chakra of one hella pissed off medic was seeping up through the building.

"She certainly has an interesting chakra signature." Pein was rather expecting to begin a discussion but the rest of the men in the room were looking anxious. "You're scared of that girl aren't you?"

"They're scared they won't get to fuck her."

"Hey man, she's a goddamn hellcat, one false move and BAM you're picking your ass out of a ten foot crater, yeah?" Deidara paused, reliving Sasuke being destroyed for the millionth time, "She's perfect!"

"Yeah well eyes off the bitch, bitch! The only one she's gonna be knocking around is me, seriously!"

Kisame scratched at his head, a horrible thought popping into it, "There are chakra suppressors in there, right?"

"The door is completely sealed, she won't be getting through it." Pein was confident in his base's security; you didn't get to be head of a terrorist organisation without good workmanship.

Kisame looked at the ceiling, "The door isn't what I'm worried about..."

A huge wave of chakra exploded from down below followed by the sounds of crashing masonry. The chakra signal began to rapidly fade away.

Pein caught himself being almost impressed before remembering to be seriously pissed off. "All damages come out of your wages."

A round of groans went up before the whole room rushed out in hot pursuit of one frightening kunoichi.

XXXXX

R/R


	5. Chapter 5

In which Konoha give the Akatsuki too much credit. This is a build-up for the next chapter so again it's a little short on laughs but hell, should be an explosive one next time! Thank you very much for all your reviews, you are all wonderful people. Ass-licking over, so onward.

XXXXX

Sakura ignored the strange looks she was attracting as she stomped towards the village gate. It could have been her pink hair or the semi-concealed Konoha headband around her neck but it was much more likely to be the small craters she was leaving after every step. It hadn't taken much to destroy the cell they'd put her in so she still had a lot of angry energy to burn off. Her appearance was so unexpected that the two ANBU she passed just stared, flinching slightly as they felt the chakra wave coming off her. They thought about stopping her but there was obviously something fucked up going on and they didn't want to be involved. Besides leader-sama was out in the village too, best to let him deal with it.

She couldn't see many guards on the gate but they wouldn't be expecting someone trying to get out of the village rather than in. The civilians gave her a wide berth as she came through the market place. They were more than used to terrifying ninjas wandering around. Sakura vaguely thought about stopping to get herself some more food but those absolute bastards were bound to be right behind her.

The gate guards looked up from their newspaper and novel as she approached. They gave each other a 'what the fuck look?' and stood up.

"Hey, stop!" He kind of regretted speaking up when Sakura turned her head really slowly towards him and fixed him with furious green eyes.

"What?" The noise came out oddly feral through her grinding teeth.

"… Umm, aren't you the girl Hoshigaki-sama was carrying earlier?"

Sakura breathed in deeply through her nose. "Do not speak to me about that _bastard_!"

The two guards would later deny jumping backwards slightly when she barked at them.

Most of the Akatsuki appeared at the gate about ten minutes later to find two rather shell-shocked ninjas. Pein rolled his eyes; this ridiculous girl was a hell of a lot more trouble than she was worth. If he didn't think there'd be a full-scale mutiny from his sappy minions he'd just kill her.

"Where'd the kunoichi go?"

The two guards looked at each other fearfully before cowering under Pein's rapidly diminishing patience. After a few seconds Pein lost his temper and grabbed one by the throat and lifting them clear into the air. Kisame, Hidan and Deidara smirked; glad that their leader was taking out his anger issues on someone who wasn't them for a change.

The other guard saved his friend's ass by making a squeaking noise that almost sounded like an answer. Pein dropped the first guy, the others wincing when he hit the ground like a sack of shit.

"Yes, idiot? Do you have something to say?" Pein mentally began scheduling a serious overhaul of the village's training regime. How had these morons slipped through?

"Err, leader-sama, she said if we told you which way she went she'd tear us three new assholes..." Pein gave the man a hard stare, he wasn't even embarrassed to be so scared by a woman about two-thirds his size.

Hidan, Deidara and Kisame nodded sagely. Pein felt a pressure headache coming on.

"Now you listen to me," the two guards immediately snapped to attention at his tone, "I am prepared to put up with a certain amount of idiocy from these cretins," he gestured over his shoulder at the three Akatsuki, "because they occasionally prove useful. But I'll be damned if I'm going to put up with any of _your_ horseshit! Now tell me where the girl went or three new assholes will be the least of your worries!"

Both men gulped, one a bit more delicately than the other given Pein had almost crushed his windpipe, and pointed to the left of the gate. The hunt was on.

XXXXX

Naruto had finally stopped running around, screaming and gesticulating after Yamato smacked him over the head hard enough to almost knock him out. To say nerves were a little frayed was an understatement and his noisy overreacting was not helping.

"What are we going to do Tsunade-sama?"

"I don't know! Why do people always ask me the fucking difficult questions?"

"Will they demand a ransom?"

"I reckon they're trying to get to Naruto. They reckon he'll go off half-cocked and they can grab him."

"I cannot imagine how they came to that conclusion ..."

"Shut up Sai. I need options here! We don't know what they want for sure, where they went, where they are, hell we don't know shit!"

"Maybe you should calm down a little Tsunade-sama ..."

"Ah eat it Yamato!"

Kakashi rubbed his face, suddenly feeling very old. Naruto was coming around from his near concussion and looked like he was going to start making noise again. Sai didn't seem to be bothered by these events and Tsunade had already downed at least two bottles while they'd been standing around. Yamato was looking helplessly at him and shrugging while at least two ANBU guards had stuck their head into the room to find out what the hell all the noise was about. If Konoha's enemies ever found out what went on behind closed doors in this village they'd never hear the end of it.

Kakashi sighed; time to take charge, as always. "Why don't we get a team together and head out to where she disappeared, we can find a trail and go from there?"

Tsunade rubbed her temples, "I want to say yes Kakashi, but it's a suicide mission, you know that. They must know you and the idiot will demand to go."

"You're damn right I'm going you old bag! That's Sakura out there! Who knows what the hell they'll have done to her!" Tsunade watched Naruto turn an interesting colour of red with rage and green with nausea.

"This is exactly the reaction they were going for, you simpleton! There's no way in hell you're leaving this village!"

"Not to mention there's no telling where they are or how many of them we'll have to face."

"Exactly! What if you break in and there's all of them there, sitting around playing cards or whatever the hell it is S-Class super criminals do? You might as well suck your own soul out and save them the bother!"

Naruto immediately began to sulk giving the rest of them a bit of peace.

"I'm not sending you out Kakashi, I'll send another ANBU team, hopefully that'll give us the drop on them saying as they'll be expecting the moron to be there. If they can even find anything that is."

"Tsunade-sama you can't ..."

"Shut your hole Kakashi, we're not going to fall into their trap. You're not going, neither's Yamato or idiots one and two. That is final!"

XXXXX

Pein had to admit, his cretinous men may have been right about this girl. They'd been out searching for at least an hour and there was no sign of her. Part of him secretly hoped that she would go away so there could be a return to some sense of normality. Given the men under his command though, he supposed this was outside the realms of possibility.

Hidan was almost depressed. "How come she didn't stick around, seriously?"

Deidara nodded morosely, kicking a loose stone out of the way as they searched the surrounding forest.

Kisame sighed, "She probably thought we were gonna rape her or torture her for information or some shit."

"And if we weren't in this fucking parallel universe where you have all become giant vaginas, no doubt we would have." Kakazu's mood had not improved any, especially after viewing the damage to the base.

"Shut up fuckass! Your dick's so small she probably wouldn't even notice if you did."

"... That's the best you could come up with there? Dick jokes? Fucking hell, Hidan, she's really got to you hasn't she?"

Hidan made a face before sulking off towards Pein who had stopped up ahead for some reason.

Itachi was focussing on something intently. Kisame took the opportunity to check if he'd grown any stubble yet. Nothing so far, he noted with some disappointment.

"I still say she seemed kinda into us yeah? I mean, shit, when Sasuke and his twat brigade were there we were like friends!"

"Friends don't usually put each other into a coma and kidnap them. I can see why she's pissed off."

Pein rolled his eyes; maybe this was all a plot from Konoha to throw his men into disarray? He thought about it for a minute before laughing, Konoha was all full of straight-laced, and moronic, do-gooders, they couldn't come up with something as subversive as this in a million years. That meant that this Sakura really did have a huge amount of influence over his men. That was even scarier than the undercover spy idea...

"Yeah I guess she didn't look too happy when 'Tachi said she wasn't gonna get to go home."

"... Do not refer to me as 'Tachi."

"Can you find the kunoichi?"

There was a long and pregnant pause. "No."

Pein managed not to fling himself on the ground and scream. "Why not?"

Itachi looked around calmly, "She isn't here."

Kisame leapt between Itachi and their leader as Pein began to shake with repressed anger. "Maybe we should split up? Cover more ground?" Would also have the benefit of stopping Itachi, Hidan or Deidara being disembowelled by their angry leader.

Pein reined himself in, wondering if their skills were worth the damage to his blood vessels. "That's a good idea Kisame." Why couldn't the rest of them be the like Kisame? Of course there was the issue of his murderous rampages but aside from those he was clever, sensible and not a complete pain in everyone's ass.

Kisame puffed up a little at this praise, causing everyone else to roll their eyes. Deidara and Hidan immediately banded together, and Kisame pushed Itachi towards Kakazu.

Pein looked at the sky but there was no calculating the time, given the black clouds that constantly lingered over the village. "Meet back at the village in an hour. If we can't find her by then, we're going to have to get serious; she knows where the base is."

"She may not realise where she is."

"'Cos she'd never figure it out given the fact it's been pissing down with rain the whole time she's been here, yeah?"

"It rains in other places too; I fail to see why she should make the connection."

"... Shut up Itachi, you know I'm right yeah?"

"Less arguing, more looking imbeciles!" The men scattered on command and Pein allowed himself a small sigh of satisfaction that at least they still did what they were told.

XXXXX

Sakura sighed in satisfaction as she lay back in the hot-springs. She'd laid a few false trails and even sent a couple of clones out before she'd made a bolt for it. Learning how to teleport with her snails was hellish hard work, but damn if it hadn't paid off this time! She almost missed those crazy assholes; they'd sure shown her an interesting time. Still, after a good rest, hopefully uninterrupted by psychotic yet curiously charming mass murderers, it was back to home and normality. Besides, they were all insane, they might even write.

XXXXX

Tsunade surveyed the ninjas in front of her critically. A four-man team wouldn't be enough if they came up against more than one or two Akatsuki but the village couldn't spare any manpower right now. Even Neji wasn't supposed to be back on active duty at the minute as he'd only been released from hospital a couple of weeks ago. This didn't seem to faze Neji himself and word from the nurses sent he was supposed to meet with for checkups was that he was fast becoming unbearably grumpy.

Kiba didn't look terribly happy. According to Kakashi there was some bad blood between him and the Hyuuga prodigy stemming from an undisclosed incident regarding breakfast a few days ago. However he looked more than up for the challenge of finding Sakura – he didn't often get high level missions but his tracking skills would be invaluable given that Kakashi and his dogs were banned. Akamaru was curled up in a patch of warm sunlight coming through the window.

Izumo and Kotetsu were overjoyed to finally be off gate-guard duty, _the_ most boring activity in the whole village. Well, Izumo was mostly going for that reason; it was common knowledge around the village that Kotetsu had a massive crush on Sakura. Unfortunately Kakashi had taken exception to the older jounin's romantic overtures and put a stop to them before Sakura even found out. Kotetsu had pretended the black eye was from a training accident.

They would be meeting up with Genma where Sakura was last seen and then heading out to look for clues. Genma had been pretty happy with this arrangement as it gave him a few days off to loaf around and seduce the local women. Pretty much everyone in Konoha was wise to his tricks now and he'd been finding it much more difficult to get any. Kakashi and co. had a bet running on how long the situation could continue before his junk exploded.

Speaking of Kakashi he was sulking in the corner, obviously cataloguing all the faults of the team so he could try and go himself. Naruto had been locked up in the high security cells below the tower, ostensibly to stop him leaving the village but really to spare the village his incessant whining. Sai was in the cell next door to him, not because Tsunade was worried about him disobeying orders but to make him listen to said incessant whining as punishment for annoying her. Yamato had last been seen at the bar.

"I'm sure you know why you're here, given that everyone in a six mile radius will have heard the idiot shrieking."

The four men nodded, Kiba and Neji pointedly not looking anywhere near each other.

"When you get to the inn, find Genma, drag him out of whoever's bed if you have to, and then find a trail. There's bound to be something of a trail, and maybe a battle site if it's true that Sasuke was there. Do _not_ engage them if you see them, just gather information, but if you do see a chance to grab Sakura then go for it. Clear?"

The other ninjas nodded again, Kotetsu looking warily at Kakashi who had started to look murderous. Tsunade rubbed the bridge of her nose before waving them off, they'd better find something.

XXXXX

When Pein arrived back at the gates he was expecting his men to have either found the irritating chit or be angry that they had failed. He was not expecting them to have not found her and to be despondent about it. Well Hidan and Deidara looked despondent. Itachi rarely had a discernable expression and Kakazu just looked bored. Kisame arrived a few seconds after he did and even he appeared vaguely upset that Sakura had disappeared. Pein realised it probably wasn't normal to wish he was surrounded by ruthless killers but he was beginning to actually worry if Sakura had damaged his men beyond repair. What he wouldn't give for Deidara to blow something up rather than morosely tugging on his pony-tail.

Kakazu crossed his arms over his chest, wondering whether he should reveal the only bit of information found during this unproductive afternoon. Part of him desperately didn't want to, but he thought maybe if he seemed useful now he could avoid anymore work later, allowing him to get back to his ledgers.

"I think I know where she went." He curled his lip in derision as several disgustingly hopeful looks were sent his way.

Hidan and Deidara shared an excited glance while Kisame, being older and wiser, managed to pretend that he wasn't leaning forward to hear the news. Itachi hadn't moved and the others suspected his nose was right out of joint that Kakazu had noticed something he hadn't. Pein couldn't decide whether this was a good or a bad thing. Good because they needed to find her to stop her giving any information about the base away. Bad, very bad, because it might lead to his men becoming total saps and the complete disintegration of his mental health.

Kakazu drew out the moment, enjoying Hidan's anticipation.

"Come on you bastard, yeah!"

"If you don't start talking I'll shove my boot up your ass, seriously!"

Itachi even looked mildly concerned, making Kisame smirk at him proudly, he'd make a heterosexual man out of him yet.

"Did you not see all the slimy shit on the ground in that clearing over that way?"

The others looked between each other and shrugged. Kakazu rolled his eyes, how come something as obvious as this gone right over the heads of his comrades.

"She is Tsunade's apprentice correct? Well, what summons is Tsunade famous for?"

The light went on in Itachi's eyes first, "Slugs."

"Oh man, that shit was slug goop? Goddamnit I walked all through it!" Hidan did a revolted little dance on the spot.

"What, you can wander in covered in blood and guts from all your 'sacrifices' but you can't handle slug slime? What in the hell is up with you, yeah?"

"Slugs freak me out, seriously. Once that dick-head," he gestured to Kakazu, "left me out in the forest in a few pieces. Those little bastarding slugs got everywhere, and I mean, fucking everywhere." Kisame couldn't help laughing aloud, soon joined by Deidara. Kakazu smirked at the memory; any dismemberment of his partner always put him in a very good mood.

"I reckon even if she used some sort of teleportation there'll be some sort of trail."

"Yes, there will be a lingering chakra pathway. We had best move quickly in case she moves on from wherever she is in a different manner."

Pein was feeling privately relieved that his men were still functioning and at least now they had a plan. Although he was a bit pissed he hadn't come up with it, God maybe this girl was somehow infecting his brain too?

Hidan and Deidara high-fived before rushing away to gather supplies for the journey. The others followed a more sedate pace although it was pretty obvious Kisame was itching to be in with two of them. Kakazu was looking hopefully at his leader, hoping to be excused from this moronic chase. However Pein wasn't feeling at all accommodating and figured that if he had to be involved then he sure as hell wasn't going to suffer alone.

Kakazu fumed. _Bastard._

XXXXX

Izumo and Kotetsu shared a long look before sticking their fists out. Izumo grimaced, ignoring the snickers of Kiba from behind them. Neji rolled his eyes but had suspiciously refrained from activating his byakugan.

Their enquiries as to the whereabouts of their fellow jounin had directed them here, to one of the upstairs rooms. Kiba had his hands over his ears, protecting his sensitive hearing from the noises coming from within. Kotetsu had voted for waiting downstairs until he finished but unfortunately time was of the essence. Izumo raised a fist and banged on the door.

"Genma, cease and desist! Get decent and get out here, we'll be downstairs!"

After hearing some banging and cursing from inside the room which told them their message had been received loud and clear they beat a hasty retreat down to the main bar.

A few minutes later a dishevelled and seriously pissed off Genma appeared. Apart from calling them all dicks he was in no mood to speak to them and they immediately headed out to find where the Akatsuki or even Sasuke had gone. They didn't split up given the dangers so they were all present when they came across the huge furrow in the ground and the destroyed trees surrounding it.

"Hooooly shit!" Kiba tipped a hand over his eyes as he squinted trying to see how bad the destruction was.

"Least we know Sakura was around here anyway!" Kotetsu looked relieved that at least she'd been well enough to put up a fight.

"Yeah, but people tend to get pissed off when you hit them this hard ..."

"Hell if they walked away, I've seen her crush people man." Akamaru yelped in agreement with his master, he'd always liked Sakura; she always had little treats for him.

They were distracted by voices coming from the path not too far from where they were standing and immediately dropped into defensive stances. However the voices belonged to two old civilians.

Neji was shoved onto the path, as he had the best upbringing. "Excuse me ladies, would you happen to have seen this girl around here?" The two dears squinted at the picture of Sakura.

"Oh yes, I've seen her, very pretty, pink hair, mouth like a sailor?"

Neji couldn't keep the smirk off his face. "That's the one ma'm, could you tell me where you saw her?"

"She was up in the hot springs a few miles from here that way. Kept complaining about 'crazy S-class criminals'? Used a few words we certainly wouldn't have known in my day I tell you!"

The ninjas breathed a sigh of relief, all this worrying for nothing, she seemed fine! Maybe she'd got lucky with whatever scuffle she'd been involved in. Maybe Kiba was right and she had killed whoever was after her, she'd done Sasori in after all. Thanking the old ladies they headed off to the hot springs, unaware that not only were Kakashi, Naruto, Sai and Yamato following them at a discreet distance but they were about to be in for a whole lot of trouble involving several enemies of the village.

XXXXX

"She hit me?" Juugo winced at the flat tone of Sasuke's voice, it never meant good things were coming.

"Yes, really quite hard. I'm really surprised you aren't dead."

Sasuke rubbed his aching jaw; even with Karin's help he still had a face like a blimp and a black eye that was more like a black face.

"We're going to find her. Get moving."

Juugo privately thought this was a bad idea, given what had happened last time, but no one would listen anyway...

R/R!


	6. Chapter 6

Don't own anything. Maybe if I did this chapter wouldn't be so shite. My Walking Dead fanfiction has evidently stolen all my brainpower as this was hell to write. Still, at least the stage is set for the next arc as you might call it. I can't believe I originally thought this would be a two-shot, this thing has a mind of its own. Thanks to all the lovely reviewers who honestly make my day and also speed up chapters by making me feel like a dick for not updating! Enjoy, hope this is better to read than it was to write.

XXXXX

Sakura was sitting in a chair overlooking the hot springs with a hot meal and some hot sake. There was also the added bonus of the hot attendant who was busy bending over laying out more towels on the surrounding benches. Enjoying the view she reasoned she could stay at least another couple of hours before she really should head back to Konoha. Hopefully nobody was too worried about her and she could spin a story about how she'd run into someone needing a healer and she'd stopped to help. That way she could avoid any mention of the Akatsuki, Sasuke and the fact that just because someone was an S-Class criminal didn't necessarily make them bad to hang out with. The only flaw in this plan was that she wouldn't be able to tell Naruto how she'd re-arranged Sasuke's face.

The attendant had noticed her approving looks and smiled slyly at her. Sakura almost laughed, he was the only man around here under the age of fifty and this resort was populated almost entirely by elderly women, no wonder he had an inflated ego. Seeing her amusement he flexed slightly and grinned. _Not half as attractive as Hidan._ Sakura stopped dead, almost spitting out her mouthful of dinner. Stupid traitorous brain! Looking at the man again she was forced to admit, he was no silver-haired maniac, no crazed blonde, hell, he wasn't even big and blue!

_Dear brain, please cease and desist with all _**stupid**_ thoughts of this kind. I'm not even going to go into how inappropriate it is to think that enemies of the village are in any way sexy. Thanks._

This was clearly just post-traumatic stress, or Stockholm syndrome, something that wasn't her fault that's for sure. Stupid sexy males, without even the common decency to not be terrifying murderers. All she needed was to get home, have a good rest, possibly get shit-faced drunk and forget everything about any and all Akatsuki man-candy with serious psychological issues. The attendant was pouting a little, realising that she had lost interest. _Sorry sir, maybe you could try swearing a lot? Or blowing something up? GODDAMNIT, ENOUGH!_

She smiled wanly at the man, hoping she could somehow convince her hormones that a normal man with a normal job could be as exciting as the men of the Akatsuki. This was all Sasuke's fault, she decided. If it hadn't been for him turning up to try and off his brother then she wouldn't have been taken along for the ride and would never have formed these _stupid_ opinions. She smirked into her meal, blaming Sasuke for things always made her feel better.

Finishing up she returned to her room to pack her bags and get ready to check out. Thankfully those idiots masquerading as the most feared organisation on the planet hadn't taken away any of her equipment. Re-attaching her medic's apron she suddenly had a horrible feeling run down her spine. It felt like dread and nausea mixed together and it instantly put her on edge. Crossing her fingers and sending up a prayer to anyone listening she pulled her cloak on and left the room. She heard a crashing noise outside and began crossing her fingers harder that it was nothing to do with her. She almost whipped out a kunai when the attendant suddenly appeared around the corner.

"Hi, you leaving already?"

Sakura closed her eyes for a second to calm her racing heart before smiling at the man in a way that she hoped was pleasant but not encouraging.

"Yeah, unfortunately, got to get back home soon."

"You sure?" He smiled widely, obviously in a way that had clearly worked before on unsuspecting female patrons.

Sakura forced herself not to roll her eyes; there was no need to be a dick to a man just because he couldn't compare to a crazy priest. God, there was a phrase she thought she'd never think. "Yeah, definitely, I'll be sure to come back if I get the chance though."

The attendant looked a little put out that she wasn't going to fall over him but had the grace not to be a pain about it. "Well, I sure hope so. Will you let me walk you out?"

"Sure." Sakura couldn't help but smile at him, and anyway, she could break him if he tried anything.

Taking his arm they wandered out to the gates chattering about the facilities and the regular clients. She found out he was the owner's son but had decided to start at the bottom and get the full experience. Laughing at one of his descriptions they turned the corner to the large clearing before the gate and walked into the worst scenario Sakura could have come up with in her wildest imaginings.

The dead silence that she had hoped was a thing of the past was back.

In the clearing all heads were turned to her. The heads of her team, Kiba, Neji, Izumo, Kotetsu, Team Hebi and finally, the jewel in the shit situation crown, the Akatsuki, including their leader.

Kakashi and Yamato were holding back an enraged Naruto who was in the middle of a strange three-way face off with Sasuke and his brother. Deidara and Sai were standing a little away from the others, a large white spider and an ink tiger motionless on the ground between them. Kisame was holding Suigetsu by the throat around three feet off the ground while Kiba had just ducked under a swing from Samehada. Neji was facing off against the Rinnegan, backed up by Kotetsu and Genma and opposed by Karin. Juugo and Kakazu were at the back of the groups looking very nervous and uninterested respectively.

Hidan waved with the hand that wasn't holding his scythe up in Izumo's business. "Hey bitch!"

Sakura waved weakly before bringing the hand up to cover her eyes. Hidan smirked at everyone in satisfaction that she had acknowledged him.

The attendant looked terrified, more so when Hidan and Deidara gave him very dangerous looks for touching her, so Sakura slid her arm out of his. "You'd better go back inside, and keep everyone else in too. I got this."

He looked totally unconvinced but a hard stare, coupled with the fact that half of these men looked like they didn't take any shit, sent him moving back and away.

Sakura brought her hands together and cracked her knuckles, those who had seen her hands at work, especially Sasuke, gulped a little.

"Ok, what's going on here?" Her tone was very calm, far too calm for anyone's liking.

Hidan, with all the lack of self-preservation only immortality could bring, rolled his eyes. "We're still keeping you bitch, duh!"

Naruto almost began frothing at the mouth. "YOU BASTARD!"

Sakura stamped her foot, the clearing shaking with the impact. "Naruto! Why are you here?"

He started to calm down, looking more nervous now it seemed like she was cross with him rather than happy to be rescued. "Err, rescuing you Sakura-chan?"

Kakashi wished he had a free hand to slap over his face. Even after all these years Naruto didn't quite get his team-mate.

Sakura narrowed her eyes. "Well, thanks Naruto, next time I find myself at the mercy of a hot spring resort I'll holler for you."

Hidan, Deidara and Kisame snickered at each other over the heads of the others.

Sai decided to step in. "Despite your ugliness hag, Naruto believes these men will have touched you."

"And I will, so long as you dicks all stop cock-blocking, seriously!"

Sakura muttered angrily under her breath. "Hidan, shut up! No, of course they haven't fucking touched me!"

All the Konoha nins breathed a sigh of relief that was cut short by Deidara and Hidan both shouting 'Yet!' and laughing. Sakura pressed her lips together to keep the smirk off her face, why did they have to be all fun and shit? It was totally showing up her team.

"As you can see, I'm fine, I was fine, and I certainly will be fine so long as we all go our separate ways now and forget any of this ever happened."

Kisame scrunched up his nose, giving Suigetsu a little shake, "Even you hitting Sasuke? 'Cos I sure as hell don't want to forget that."

The Akatsuki snickered and all the Konoha ninjas turned to Sasuke, trying desperately not to laugh too, now they knew why his face looked like he'd been hit by a bus. Sasuke went bright red, at least, Itachi knew he had, the others couldn't tell what with all the bruising.

He then made the mistake of meeting Naruto's eye, causing the blonde to erupt into full blown giggles, arguably making the situation worse. "Ahahaha teme! Really? You should know better than to mess with Sakura-chan!"

Sasuke looked torn between wanting the ground to open him up to allow him to die of shame and wanting to Chidori everyone into the next century.

Neji took his chance that everyone was distracted. "I've been meaning to ask, how did you four get out of the village?"

Kiba risked standing up now Kisame had slung Samehada over his shoulder again. "Yeah, she had the place on total lockdown."

Kakashi relaxed his hold on Naruto when it was clear he was just going to laugh at Sasuke more. "Well, there was this little old lady and she needed help just outside the gates and ..."

"Spare me; these tales have gotten even worse since I left." Itachi glowered, causing Kakashi to look mortally offended.

"Just because you have no imagination!" Yamato put a hand on Kakashi's arm to offer silent support.

Genma looked back over at Sakura who was standing with her hands on her hips trying to figure out what she'd done in a past life to deserve this situation.

"You're looking pretty hot there Sakura ..." he trailed off with a wink, not realising the mortal danger he'd just put himself in.

Kisame scowled, he certainly didn't like the cut of this character's jib. Deidara reckoned he had easily enough clay to send that guy a nasty surprise, an exploding surprise. Hidan was just going to hit him. Even Itachi looked mildly put out that someone else was trying to flirt, no matter how badly or unlikely to succeed, with their kunoichi.

Sakura looked unimpressed. "Fuck off Genma, you think anything with a pulse is pretty hot."

"Yeah, she'd never go near you grandpa so lay off!" Naruto had managed to control himself enough to turn on the older jounin.

Genma being, at most, ten years older than her looked horrified. "She'd take me over you any day, _son_, so shut the hell up!"

"Can we focus please?" Yamato sounded a little strained; clearly the surreal situation was getting to him more than others.

Kakazu would have vehemently agreed, if he could have been bothered, he wanted this over as fast as humanly possible. And perhaps a chance to collect on Kakashi's sizeable bounty if the opportunity arose.

Pein just wanted it to be yesterday so none of this nonsense was happening. Konan had warned him there was bound to be stupidity going on and that he should stay out of it but he hadn't listened. So on top of everything else he was going to have to deal with his partner giving him the I-told-you-so look every five minutes.

"RIGHT!" Sakura slammed her fist into her other hand with a crack like thunder, causing everyone except Hidan to jump. Hidan just looked rather excited. "I, and my idiot team-mates, and these four, are going back to Konoha right now!"

"But, bitch! You're coming with us! These dicks can go back to that shithole!"

This kicked everything off. Naruto lunged towards the priest, slipping through Kakashi's fingertips on the way and everyone else followed. Sakura was stood at the sidelines of a huge multi-faced brawl looking on in shock and increasing anger as the men scuffled. Looking over the top of them she could see that both Pein and Juugo hadn't joined in. A vein in Pein's forehead was dangerously enlarged and it was interfering with the normal blinking of his eye which was half-closed with rage. Juugo was pressing his fingers together nervously in a manner frighteningly reminiscent of Hinata. It didn't really work on a six and half feet tall, ripped behemoth half as well though.

Sakura considered just leaving. This was mostly brought on by a decent sized explosion followed by manic laughter and Hidan shouting something about how he was going to touch her and no one was to interfere. Shaking her head she picked up her pack and was walking away, Juugo and Pein both deciding whether to follow her – Pein for the sake of his men's sanity and Juugo because she was clearly the sanest person there, when silence descended over the clearing. Spinning around she was met with all the men (and Karin) standing around staring vacantly into the middle distance. With the exceptions of Pein, Itachi and Sasuke.

"Oh for fuck's sake Madara, I was hoping they were going to kill each other and then we could've gone home."

Sakura crossed her arms firmly, after all the bullshit she'd put up with in the last few days and Uchiha Madara had to go and show up. It was like her life was one big, shitty soap. Sasuke was backing away, the only Madara he'd heard of was their ancestor who supposedly lived forever. Itachi sighed and began scooping up exploding insects and taking them a distance away for when they would inevitably go off.

Madara chuckled darkly from under the orange mask he was so fond of. His youngest relative looked scared of him, and so he should. Itachi looked as bored as ever although he was keeping an eye on this interesting kunoichi that Konan had told him about. He could see why the men were interested in her, pretty enough and she didn't look frightened of him, more annoyed that he'd shown up as she was leaving. All in all this was quite an interesting scene. So interesting that he wasn't even torturing all those inside the powerful genjutsu, they were all just in a blank room.

Pein rolled his eyes again; the oldest Uchiha was staring at the girl. He'd have a full out mutiny on his hands if he did anything to her and it would cause a huge administrative headache. "Sakura, Madara, Madara, Sakura. Now what was it you wanted?"

"Charmed, m'dear. Word is you're a medic."

"Yep. Loyal to the village though, sorry."

"Of course, but has anyone told you of the many, and varied, benefits that come from joining the Akatsuki?"

Sakura gave him a deeply unimpressed look, to somewhere around his chin. Sasuke's jaw was hanging open, and not just because Sakura had wrecked it, why was everyone so goddamn hung up on her? Itachi felt vaguely like smirking at his younger brother, it just wasn't an attractive sight.

"You don't even have to join, per say, you could even just stay with us!"

Pein looked askance at his leader, there was something fishy going on here but he couldn't quite figure out what. The Kyuubi was right there, yet Madara was more interested in the infuriating kunoichi? He was either planning something even more devious than collecting the tailed beasts or he had finally gone senile. The latter was something Pein had suspected for quite some time.

"I can see you're not overly impressed, but isn't it advantageous to be working with the best the ninja world has to offer?"

Sakura's expression changed to incredulous and while Itachi looked a little wounded, Pein couldn't blame her. The men hadn't exactly made a good showing of themselves recently. Maybe he should allow them more visits to the red-light district; they clearly had too many hormones floating around.

"Look, while I appreciate the interest, creepy as it may be, you aren't trying to get me to take on a bloody office job so why don't you tell me what's really going on?"

Pein thought it was probably best if she didn't take that tone with one of the most dangerous men in the world. Madara had a famously short fuse and certainly didn't like being sassed, especially by small women ninety years his junior. Rather than just killing her, which Pein half expected, instead he laughed but got distracted by Sasuke who hadn't stopped staring at him.

"Hello Sasuke, I see you sort of killed Orochimaru, Itachi was so worried about you." Sakura listened interestedly, this certainly backed up what Kisame had been saying earlier.

Itachi 'tched' most likely because he didn't want his little brother to know that he actually cared; his callous dealings with Sasuke were all part of his dark mystique. Still, he thought, his approach had pushed Sasuke into the clutches (and perhaps worse) of the snake Sannin so maybe it hadn't been as effective as he'd hoped. Sasuke was determined to start a family in the future though, that meant he was still interested in girls in some way, Orochimaru hadn't managed to fiddle with that.

Sasuke's head did snap to his brother. Itachi was worried about him going to Orochimaru? He must mean Itachi was worried he was going to get strong enough to beat him. Yes, that was obviously it. Itachi didn't care; little things like snapping his wrist and murdering their whole family had proved this quite conclusively. Itachi looked at him in a completely bland way, neither confirming nor denying this. Madara laughed again, the sound sending shivers down the spines of Sakura and Sasuke; Pein and Itachi were more than used to it.

Seeing Sasuke wasn't going to speak and given that he'd planted a nice little seed of doubt in his head Madara decided to get back to the matter in hand. Another kunoichi would be useful around the place and this one could patch together some of the more injury prone members. Mostly Deidara and Hidan but occasionally Itachi too, especially as he had that lung condition that he thought no one knew about. The men obviously liked her, going so far as to be intensely stupid in public and in front of powerful leaf-nins. Besides Konan had been bending his ear about having no girly conversation.

Clapping his hands and only enjoying a little the way Sakura and Sasuke jumped his eyes started spinning.

XXXXX

Kakashi was the first to break out of Madara's hold. At least he assumed it was Madara as the only person capable of creating a mass genjutsu like that had been too busy avoiding getting chidori'd from two sides at once. Looking around he watched as the others came to. Sasuke was sitting on a log away from the group deep in thought, itself a worrying picture. His team were still here as were all the Konoha ninjas. The Akatsuki were gone. And so was Sakura.

Kakashi considered himself to be something of a mild-mannered and easy-going guy. Evidently others thought this too, because they all jumped and ducked for cover when he shouted 'FUCK'S SAKE' at the top of his voice. Today was not a good day. Well it had been earlier, when they'd seen that Sakura was ok, but after that it had got extremely shitty very quickly.

Sasuke barely looked up. Did his brother care? Karin, Juugo and Suigetsu wandered over on unsteady legs and sat down with him. Naruto's waterworks had started up and he had latched onto an intensely uncomfortable looking Sai.

A sudden thought occurred to the youngest Uchiha. "What did he mean sort of killed Orochimaru?"

XXXXX

Sakura found that she was not at all surprised to be waking up somewhere unfamiliar. She was though, mostly relieved to see she was still dressed and a little touched to see that she had been covered over by an Akatsuki cloak – probably Kisame's judging by the size of it. She sighed and snuggled down. She had been so close to freedom and then that dick Madara had to show up.

She could feel the chakra suppressors humming through the walls and realised that as dumb as they sometimes came across, the Akatsuki certainly learned from their mistakes. She would just have to wait it out and come up with a new plan of escape. Hopefully those utter cretins, and Kakashi, would have the sense to let her handle this on her own without putting Naruto in any more danger.

They'd certainly put her on a comfy couch though. What harm could a little more sleep do? Escapes could be planned at any time.

XXXXX

R/R


	7. Chapter 7

Hello all, I'm going to brag a little so if you don't care (and why should you?) just read on. It is a week til my graduation where I shall officially have a master's degree (and a 2:1 to boot!). /inflating own ego.

So now university is finished, well until September when I go back for postgrad, updates will hopefully be more frequent. Thanks to all who review, I'm so chuffed that you all like it so much. Hope I can maintain the quality. Enjoy!

XXXXX

Sakura was obviously being held in an underground room as her body-clock was telling her it was mid-morning but there was no light filtering in. There were some crashing noises coming from the down the hall which was probably what had woken her up. There was clearly no peace to be had around these crazy assholes. Still she'd had a good few hours sleep and was feeling ready to deal with the idiocy she found herself involved in. First thing – something to eat.

Shrugging off the massive cloak then deciding to throw it on, trying not to think about the implications of this action, she wandered over to the bolted door. She knocked her knuckles against it, feeling the seals pull the chakra from her skin. She rolled her eyes; it was on so strong it could've sucked Kisame dry in three minutes. Honestly, you destroy one wall and suddenly you can't be trusted. Why all this was necessary when they had goddamn Uchiha Madara running around escaped her; she wouldn't be able to do a damn thing against him. Still, overkill was kind of these guys' forte. It was flattering in a weird way.

She picked at her nails as she waited for someone to come and open up. Whoever had set the chakra suppressors would know she'd activated them. It didn't take long – the door swung inwards to reveal a marginally more relaxed looking Pein. He gave her a critical once-over, one eyebrow raising slightly as she stared straight back at him. To the Akatsuki leader, used to striking fear into the hearts of all her surveyed, she was looking irritatingly unconcerned.

"Are you going to behave yourself?"

Sakura smiled sarcastically, "So long as I get a shower and some food soon. Besides, what counts as behaving in this mad-house?"

Pein glared, just because he was surrounded by idiots didn't mean he wasn't a good disciplinarian. "The usual, no trying to escape, no breaking things, no fighting" – he understood her horrified look – "outside of training. And if you feel like killing someone, make it Hidan."

Sakura nodded, sounded fair enough. Pein gestured for her to give him her arm. She gave him an unimpressed look. He rolled his eyes and grabbed it anyway, snapping on a chakra infused locator bracelet which she eyed with interest.

"Hidan's idea?"

"Kisame's actually. He said he's getting too old to tramp around the countryside looking for irritating kunoichis."

"I bet he didn't call me irritating."

"No, that was me, but it was definitely his sentiment."

"Clever idea though, scuppers a few of my escape plans."

"Yes sometimes I think Kisame is the real brains of this operation. Most people have this idea it's Itachi."

"Naw, at least Kisame isn't socially inept. You can't take Itachi seriously if he talks for more than a couple of minutes."

"Ah, other people have noticed that too? Kisame usually tries to do all the talking."

"I don't think it's common knowledge, just hanging around with Sasuke you really see him overplay the 'dark and mysterious' card."

"That is kind of his thing. I understand that women find that aspect of him very attractive."

"They must get disappointed when he talks to them then. He's a virgin right?"

"Most certainly. At least, I would definitely be surprised if he wasn't."

"Yeah figures. Anyway, shower, food? Even proper prisoners get them."

"Who says you aren't a proper prisoner?"

"Well aside from Madara's little job offer most kidnappers kidnap people for a hell of a lot less stupid reasons."

"Fair point I suppose. But as you are technically a prisoner and will be staying here for a while, I'd get used to stupidity – you'll be experiencing it a lot around here."

"How do you manage?"

"You don't achieve world domination without powerful minions – no matter how embarrassing and idiotic they are. The shower is up a couple of floors, I'll show you where."

Sakura grinned and grabbed her pack – at least the leader wasn't a total nutcase like the rest of them. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

"Is there somewhere I can wash my clothes too?"

Pein sniffed imperiously, "We have servants who will do that for you. Well, employees. It's apparently un-politically correct to say servants in this day and age."

"Forgive my scepticism, but you actually care about that sort of thing?"

"Well Konan does, and a happy workforce does a better job. Why else do you think you're here?"

"Maybe I am backing the wrong horse here; I don't think anyone has servants in Konoha except the big clans."

"Madara wasn't lying about the many and varied benefits thing. Now come along, I need to keep a regular eye on the cretins – they've been in the kitchen for a while and it's making me nervous."

"The shower has a lock right?"

Pein frowned as he led her down the corridor, "As far as I know?"

Sakura put her hand on her hip, "It's for their own good."

"I'll keep them off this level," he agreed.

XXXXX

"Is that bitch awake yet?"

Pein summoned all of his patience as he walked into the kitchen to be greeted by his assembled men. Hidan, naturally, was right up in his face the second he was through the door. It was clear Hidan was worried. It was oddly sweet to see him care about anything other than himself and his God, if hugely disturbing at the same time. Deidara was sculpting at the table although the clay was grey as Pein had banned him from using his explosives anywhere but his own quarters. It had only taken several new walls and an entire new wardrobe for Itachi to make him come to this decision. Kakuzu was reading the paper and occasionally glaring over it at his partner who hadn't been able to sit still for several hours. Itachi was staring blankly out of the window; the rest had worked out that he was actually just sleeping with his eyes open. Zetsu was hovering over Kisame while he was cooking – Pein was glad to see at least one member was using the kitchen for its intended purpose.

"Yes, she is. And I'm sure you'll be happy to know she doesn't seem to want to eviscerate you all. At least, not at present."

"Fuck yeah!" Hidan laughed and backed off from the Akatsuki leader's personal space.

"So she's ok? Madara didn't fuck her up too badly?" Kisame cast the leader a hard look over his shoulder as he stirred his noodles.

Pein wondered if Kisame realised that his domesticity somewhat reduced his fearsome appearance, especially when wearing that ridiculous apron. "I don't think he did anything to her actually, all she was interested in was a shower and something to eat. Usually his victims try to kill themselves and such like."

Deidara nodded, relieved, then his head jerked up. "Wait, so she's in the shower, yeah?"

Pein watched with irritation as Hidan's eyes became as wide as saucers. The priest probably wouldn't have listened properly and not figured that out until much later. Trust Deidara to start paying attention to what anyone said at this very moment.

"All of you are banned from the fourth level, do you understand me? I refuse to have anymore drama in this place. Do you realise how much you idiots have already damaged this organisation's reputation?"

Pein was relieved to see that they all looked a bit sheepish at this, well Itachi hadn't stopped sleeping yet, but most of them did.

"Bitch is worth it." Pein's relief disappeared as the others, excluding Kakuzu and Itachi this time, nodded at this pronouncement.

"Besides, yeah, those guys from Konoha must've shit their pants when Madara showed up."

"Sasuke sure did!"

Itachi turned around slowly at the laughter this generated. His brother was the butt of almost every joke around here but he supposed Sasuke brought it on himself by being so embarrassing. Still, it was hard to forget his feelings of brotherly protection.

"Nice of you to join us Itachi, I'll re-iterate for your benefit – for the time being you are all banned from the fourth level. Konan is the only one allowed up there."

Hidan's eyes got even wider and Pein had to resist the extremely strong urge to beat him over the head. That urge was always present when dealing with the Jashinist but since he met that girl it had been near on a thousand times stronger. Thankfully Kakuzu shared a similar sentiment and slapped him over the back of the head.

"For fuck's sake! Let a man fantasise in peace!"

"They would both tear you to shreds."

"Lots of things are worth it when she's involved."

"Word, yeah."

Kisame smirked into his vegetable chopping, oh to be young again.

XXXXX

Sakura had spent two of the most enjoyable hours in recent memory in the huge and strangely lavish bathroom Pein had allowed her to use. She'd taken the longest shower she'd possibly ever had figuring that if these people were going to kidnap her then resistance could start by using up all their hot water. Then she'd proceeded to do all the ridiculously girly things she usually did when returning from a long and kick-ass ninja mission including trimming her fringe and doing all her nails. She'd pulled on her very last clean outfit and put her dirty clothes down the laundry chute, mentally vowing revenge if Pein had been lying about the servants thing.

When she finally emerged, feeling refreshed but incredibly hungry she was greeted outside the door by a stern-faced but beautiful woman with blue hair.

"Hello Sakura, Pein sent me to bring you to the kitchen. I'm Konan."

"Oh yeah, 'God's Angel', right?"

Konan looked shocked that this Konoha ninja knew something like this. Sakura just laughed at the look on her face. "What, you think I didn't keep an ear to the ground when I was here the last time? Besides, all those old biddies at that hot spring resort want to know when you and Pein are going to have kids."

Konan valiantly fought the blush that covered her face but it wasn't good enough to fool Sakura who just raised her eyebrows and smirked.

"I don't believe that is any of their business."

"Oh come on now, who doesn't love babies? Besides, powerful ninja, leader of the village, probably rich, you could choose someone worse than Pein to be the dad."

Konan had to agree with this logic although Pein had definitely been right that this girl was a strange one. Most people the Akatsuki kidnapped would never dream of acting so brazenly. To be fair though, most of them weren't allowed free access to the bathroom nor offered a job by their crazed overlord. She didn't look like much at first glance, short, slim and hair a pale pink that most ninjas would either have dyed or shaved off completely. But there was definitely something in the way she carried herself, the glint in her eyes and the way she was prepared to joke about one of the most powerful men in the world. Besides, she would have to be really something to capture Deidara's attention. Hidan was much less picky than the artist when it came to women but even he never usually got this obsessed.

"Yes, well, I believe everyone is waiting for you. Apparently they won't take Pein's word that you are alright and are demanding to see for themselves."

"Well ... that's quite sweet actually. You know, before I was pretty convinced they were all stone-cold psychos."

"They're certainly psychos alright, we just have a very good PR department that covers up the fact they're idiots."

Sakura laughed, that was something Konoha definitely needed to invest in. Konan seemed rather pleased that Sakura wasn't being a difficult prisoner and chatted amicably to her as they ascended another couple of floors in the direction of the kitchens.

"So why do you need all this space? I haven't seen or heard anybody anywhere."

"It has many functions, mostly impressing the people and displaying how wealthy and powerful we are. It also helps with the fact that most of the members hate each other on a regular basis and we need to keep them separated or we just end up spending the budget on repairing the place."

"You have a budget?"

"Well, yes. How could we run an organisation without one?"

"We all thought this was a terror organisation based on world domination, filled with murderous criminals and held together by arcane rituals and the threat of death."

Konan smiled, the PR department obviously needed a raise. "World domination is definitely the goal and there's no getting away from the men being criminals but actually we run on a solid business plan. The men all get high and regular pay as well as pension plans and vacations. We invest in the stock-market and control the trade within the village to increase living standards and create a strong currency without the risk of inflation. Pein even has a business degree."

"With all the crazy shit that's gone down over the last few days I'm not even surprised. It's brilliant, and anyone who hasn't met any of you properly wouldn't believe it."

Konan wiped some invisible dirt from her sleeve, clearly enjoying the praise. "There would be no taking over the world without administration."

Sakura gave the older woman a calculating look, "I can see why those old ladies were expecting babies from you two."

Konan sniffed, turning her head so that Sakura wouldn't see the pleased smile on her face. Sakura smiled and rubbed her stomach when it threatened to rumble. Thankfully Konan soon stopped and pushed open a pair of large double doors to reveal the kitchens. And the collection of murderous criminal (_and sexy!,_ her brain chimed in) men within.

The men were currently engaged in a vicious game of poker, with Kisame losing as he kept getting distracted by the bubbling pans on the hob. There had been an argument going on that had been approaching shouting happening when the two women walked in. All heads snapped to them and seeing Sakura looking clean, prettied up and, more than anything, relaxed took the breath right out of Deidara and Hidan. Even Itachi looked like he might have been approaching some sort of reaction to seeing her in just a tank-top and her buckled skirt.

Pein shared a look and a smile with his partner over the actions of their ridiculous men. While they embarrassed him and he often loathed them with an unequalled passion, he was fond of them in a twisted way and glad to see them happy. Alright, it was a deranged kind of happiness but none of them were exactly normal men.

Sakura raised a hand in greeting and couldn't stop herself smiling fondly at them. She would've thought getting Stockholm syndrome would have taken longer than this but it was obviously what was wrong with her. There was an instant flurry of activity as she took a seat at the table and there was a scuffle over who got to sit next to her. She rolled her eyes but laughed at the faces of Deidara and Hidan as she ended up next to Zetsu and Kakuzu.

Kisame fussed over, giving her a large plate filled with his excellent home-cooking. When all the others had received theirs there was something of an awkward silence as everyone realised they were sitting having dinner with someone they had effectively kidnapped twice. Sakura was too busy to notice, filling her face was taking up too much of her attention. Looking up halfway through she realised everyone was staring at her.

"What? It's really good!"

Kisame preened under the praise and winked at her, causing her to grin widely and duck her head. He then had to deal with hard looks from the two younger members.

Itachi delicately dabbed at the sides of his mouth with a napkin. His impeccable Uchiha manners, drilled into him from birth, would have put Hyuuga Hiashi to shame. "Did you not worry if it might be poisoned?"

Sakura gave him an unimpressed stare; the muscles it took to make it were getting a serious workout recently. "Why the hell would you want to? I'm here aren't I? And if you wanted to kill me wouldn't you have done it way before now? Or at least in the shower so there'd be less mess to clean up?"

Kakuzu gave her a calculating look, "In the shower?"

Sakura waved her fork to emphasise her point, "Sure, I try to catch all my assassination targets in the bathroom. Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of carpets? It isn't the landlord's fault the guy has to be killed."

Kakuzu's mind whirred with the possibility of having a fellow assassin help him claim a bounty. These other cretins favoured huge showy methods that gave them away and often meant he couldn't cash in. "You do a lot of assassinations then?"

Sakura tapped her lips as she thought about it, "Not an awful lot, just the ones Kakashi-sensei or Genma-san don't take on."

Hidan rested his chin on his hands; a stupid grin on his face, this woman couldn't get more perfect. Now, if he could just get her interested in Jashinism...

Pein smiled at Konan, the kunoichi had more talents than they realised. Perhaps Madara wasn't as senile as they had imagined.

"So you're not mad at us, yeah?"

Sakura couldn't help but smile at Deidara, who looked incredibly cute when he was uncertain. Hidan kicked him hard under the table. "Of course I'm mad at you all. Twice you fuckers have knocked me out and kidnapped me. And what's worse is you've done it properly this time!"

She watched her words sink in, a little surprised to see the way Deidara and Hidan dropped their gazes to the table looking unhappy. Even the rest looked a little uncomfortable. She decided to cut them some slack. "But ... as kidnappings go this isn't too bad." She forced herself not to grin as hopeful looks spread Hidan and Deidara's faces. "The food's great. Pardon me for saying Kisame, but you don't come across as the cooking type."

"A man has to cultivate many talents missy. Can't you cook?" He smiled widely at her and it was strange to think how his two rows of knife-like teeth didn't scare her anymore.

"Hell naw, if I ever want to assassinate a whole household I'll just get a job in their kitchen."

Kisame looked aghast, he had personally taught all of the members how to cook, it was his main hobby –outside of maiming and striking fear into the hearts of his enemies that is. "I'll show you how, how do you expect to get a husband if you can't cook?"

Sakura laughed aloud, "Fucking hell, Kisame, what is this? The fifties? Besides, I'd just make him cook."

"I can cook!" Deidara grinned shyly at her, causing Itachi to roll his eyes.

"Me too, bitch!" Kakuzu did his best to tamp down on the feeling of nausea caused by his idiotic partner; Kisame's food was too good to waste.

Pein hoped this competition for her affection wouldn't cause any friction. At least not any friction that he had to be personally involved in. Hidan would be fine, it was Deidara he was worried about, the boy had a tendency to act as stupidly as Hidan but without the benefit of his immortality. If it hadn't been for Zetsu and his magic threads Deidara would have been set up in the civilian town somewhere and actually having to use his pension. Konan thought it was terribly romantic. She was looking forward to having another girl around, although she couldn't actually believe Madara had listened to her and that was why Sakura was here.

Sensing this, Sakura changed the subject, though not before smiling at the pair of them, they were too cute for mass murderers. "Can I ask you people a few things? We've got plenty of myths back home that I want cleared up."

The table nodded, quite interested to see what the leaf-nins had come up with.

"Kisame, is it true that you got kicked out of Mist for eating one of the council?"

Kisame roared with laughter, his large fist slapping his thigh as the rest sniggered. "Hell no! Sure I killed him but I didn't eat him!" His voice trailed off at the end as he laughed some more.

Sakura grinned, "Come on now, you're supposed to be half-shark!"

"I think you'll find sharks don't usually eat people, you're too stringy and not enough meat on you."

"_**I agree.**_"

"That should freak me out; clearly you people have already got to me!" Sakura giggled.

"I could get to you in more ways than one bitch!" Hidan waggled his eyebrows, causing Sakura to laugh more and the rest of the table to roll their eyes.

"That was a bit of a stretch was it not?"

Hidan waved away his boss' criticism, "I can make anything work."

Sakura finished her meal and leaned back in her seat, "You people are to back me up when I tell the folks back home that being here was horrible and I didn't enjoy myself at all, clear? I certainly didn't sit and joke at the table, and Kisame's food was a thin, watery gruel made out of rats or something ok?"

Konan sniggered, maybe Sakura could get a job in the PR department, "Well obviously, who would be scared of us if any of this ever got out?"

The rest of the table nodded before Kisame got up to get their desserts. They'd just started tucking in when a harried looking man burst through the door. Pein immediately stood up to tower over the man, worried that Sakura had maybe been right and they should start acting a bit more like a feared organisation.

The man quivered in fear while handing over a note. Reading it, Pein waved his hand to dismiss the man who was clearly relieved to be away from the all the crazed criminals (and Sakura) staring at him from behind their ice cream.

Pein muttered 'for fuck's sake' under his breath before rubbing his eyes. All joviality forgotten the Akatsuki were all professional, looking at their leader for instruction.

"Those idiots from Lightening have declared war on us again. They must be siding with Konoha at the minute."

A round of groans went up from the table, and then the Akatsuki went back to their dessert. Sakura looked confused, "Is that not a bad thing?"

Konan smiled, "In a way, but they are incredibly incompetent, so it's more of an annoyance."

Pein drummed his fingers on the table. "Still, until it's done with all your missions are cancelled, I want you all in the village."

Another round of groans. "And make sure you don't end up trying to kill each other like last time! If someone is bothering you, ignore them! Shit, it's like dealing with high schoolers here sometimes."

He continued, looking at Sakura, "We might get to see those famous healing skills of yours in action sooner than expected. You won't be fighting," he continued, seeing that she was about to ask, "if they are throwing their lot in with Konoha just now they'll probably try and snag you."

Hidan slammed his fist on the table, "I'd fuck them up so hard!"

Deidara nodded, looking possessively at Sakura, who found it rather flattering. Even Kisame and Itachi looked irritated at this possibility.

Sakura sighed; at least she wouldn't have to fight Konoha's allies. That would have gotten her in deep shit when she got back home. With the village on lock-down her chances of escape were seriously narrowed too. The next while was certainly going to be interesting.

XXXXX

R/R


	8. Chapter 8

Well this sort of didn't go where I wanted it to, but I think I pulled it around at the end. It's really just a crappy filler chapter so don't expect too much out of the poor thing. Thank you all for the reviews, they are just wonderful! Graduation was brilliant, no drama, an MA in mediaeval history is now all mine /smug. Hope you all enjoy!

XXXXX

Sakura was quite surprised to find that being the prisoner of the most feared organisation on the planet wasn't as exciting as it could have been. Sure, she was pretty glad she wasn't being tortured, but even if she was, at least she'd have someone to talk to. After the meal two days previously she hadn't seen any of the Akatsuki except for Pein who occasionally appeared to check she wasn't getting up to no good. She assumed that on account of the approaching war with Lightening her crazy captors were out strengthening the village defences. She wondered if the Lightening ninjas realised that they weren't just attacking Amegakure but also the Akatsuki. It wouldn't surprise her if the organisation had managed to cover that up during previous wars and some unlucky bastard was going to run slap bang into men like Kisame. Sakura smiled, that would certainly fuck up their day; Kisame was probably using up all his patience and civility on her.

So apart from her locator bracelet (Pein had casually informed her that it would do terrible and extremely painful things to her if she left the building) she had been left to her own devices. She'd explored most of the complex already although she'd restrained herself from snooping around any rooms that looked as though they were personal. This has been incredibly hard when she'd found a room with an Uchiha fan on the wall. Clearly the village needed to know what kind of underwear Itachi wore and she would be a hero for delivering this vital information. However the horrible thought that it might have been Madara's room and she would have been fiddling with the pants of a hundred year old man made her shut the door without going in. So far she'd found at least six workout rooms, four separate studies and one highly specced medical wing that left her almost drooling. It was all white tiles and chrome and looked like it had never been used. Even the grouting was in excellent condition, she checked. All the cupboards were stocked with all manner of bandages, disinfectants and all sorts of pills and potions to fix up a damaged ninja. It was beautiful, so beautiful she felt a bit teary-eyed. Konoha's hospital looked like a shack in comparison and with the constant flow of injuries, given that they also serviced the civilian population, meant that it could never hope to be this clean. Sakura caught herself almost hoping someone would get hurt (non-life threateningly obviously) just so she would have a chance to use the place.

Off from the medical bay, passed the dozen beds with crisp and brilliantly white sheets, there was a door leading into a decent-sized greenhouse. She was sure she was on one of the middle levels so this must have been cut out of the side of the building. Huge sunlamps hanging from the ceiling augmented the dull light pouring in from the huge windows on the two largest sides. The plants were all of a medicinal nature and Sakura made a mental note to grab a bag full of some of the rarer specimens before she made a break for it. Running her hand along some high-sided planters the plants within took her bag to when she had her first experience with the Akatsuki. She had never known so much pressure as had been placed on her to save Kankuro's life with these very plants to counter-act Sasori's poison. If she hadn't succeeded then one puppet-master would have died and the other would have killed her.

She could still remember the first moment she saw them, Sasori and Deidara, she'd never felt so many emotions - fear, anger, exhilaration. The strangest thing was, despite the fact she'd fought and killed Sasori it was Deidara whose image she could bring into stronger focus from that day. He looked so young; his face drawn from the pain of his missing arm but the now familiar manic smile had been present at the prospect of combat. If she was honest, most of the fight with Sasori was a blur. That poison sure had been a doozy, combined with him stabbing her almost to death meant her brain hadn't been functioning properly. She shook her head, resting her forearm against the window as she tried to see through the pouring rain that constantly beat down upon the city. Things had certainly changed; if someone had told her a week ago that the Akatsuki were going to kidnap her for no real reason other than they felt like it she would've held them down for a check-up in case they had a brain injury.

Some banging noises from behind her in the medical wing broke her from her disgustingly nostalgic thoughts and she walked quickly back through the rows of plants, hoping that there was nothing stupid going on. Opening the door she was shocked to see blood on the floor and Kisame leaning heavily on Itachi who looked as though he was about to buckle under the weight. The rest of the Akatsuki were piling into the room behind the two and Sakura gave the heavens an angry look. She hadn't really meant she wanted someone to get hurt, dammit!

Sighing she shooed Itachi away and half-carried the huge half-shark to one of the examination tables. She could see why Itachi had been struggling; Kisame was carrying around twenty stones' worth of pure muscle.

"Kisame, you need to go on a fucking diet."

The injured giant chuckled as she man-handled him with her super-strength, the other members looking on with interest at how she was coping. Flipping him onto the bed with a flick of her wrist she pulled the material away from the huge gash on his stomach. Pein and Konan shared an impressed glance; her chakra control certainly was something. The comforting idea of Madara having finally gone round the twist was disappearing, the old coot still knew what he was doing.

Kisame looked expectantly at her and she almost laughed, "This is the part where you tell me what happened and if there's anything I need to know."

"Ach, I was being fucking sloppy," his lip curled in disgust, "and I didn't kill one of those little punks as good as I thought."

"How many of them were there?"

"Only twenty or so."

"Twenty?" Kisame laughed at Sakura's shocked tone.

"You're in with proper bad-asses now. Not the little fairies Konoha manage to come up with. No offence Itachi."

The Uchiha heir grunted, she took this to mean none taken.

"No poisons or anything?"

Pein rolled his eyes, "That's a bit too advanced for Lightening ninja."

Sakura cocked her head to one side to give him a funny look. Pein nodded, "I'm serious, they're idiots. Even worse than this lot."

The rest of the Akatsuki gave him a variety of filthy hand gestures while Konan and Sakura smirked. The group crowded around the table as her hands began to glow green and they could see Kisame's guts knit themselves back together.

"What's that bit?" Hidan was enjoying himself.

Sakura elbowed him out of the way as he got far too close into her personal space. "Get your face out of there, idiot."

Deidara snickered at his friend but he was just as interested in Sakura's work. They hadn't had a bespoke medic for ages, and certainly not one as skilled as her.

"I'm glad you all find my guts so fucking interesting." Kisame griped, although Sakura's chakra was lessening the pain as the wound healed.

"Just keeping an eye on the prisoner here." Pein emphasised the word 'prisoner' causing said prisoner to roll her eyes and step the healing up a notch.

"If I was going to abuse my skills and do one of you in it wouldn't be Kisame, he's too cool."

Kisame smirked broadly at Hidan and Deidara from his position propped up on his elbows. They both gave him un-amused glares over Sakura's head.

Pein snorted, "Be that as maybe, I didn't get to be where I am today by not supervising prisoners, especially ones like you."

Sakura 'sshed' them all causing Pein's eyebrows to shoot up in indignation and his partner to snicker quietly to herself. Another few minutes and Kisame's muscled stomach looked as good as new.

"Does this hurt?" Sakura prodded him quite hard where the wound had been.

He winced, "Do you have to do that?"

Sakura rolled her eyes, "Don't be a baby, I have to see if everything's fine under there."

"Well when you aren't abusing me it doesn't hurt no. And I'm not a baby. You should see Itachi when he's hurt."

Itachi looked mortally offended but Pein raised a hand to stop him arguing. Deciding Kisame was going to be alright she rifled through one of the cupboards and pulled out one of the many blood-replenishing pills. These were incredibly rare and incredibly expensive, another thing to grab before she escaped.

"I dunno what you lot are up to but Kisame needs at least a couple of days rest."

"That should be acceptable; the initial scouting parties have been destroyed. There's a captured ninja in one of the holding cells for you Hidan."

"Fuck yeah!"

Sakura felt a little sorry for the other prisoner, she wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of Hidan's baser instincts. "You gonna torture him for information and stuff?"

Hidan grinned manically at her, "Well duh, bitch!"

Kakuzu even managed a smile at the prospect of getting to let off some steam on a real enemy. The rest shook their heads in vague amusement. Torturing was usually left to the un-dead duo now Itachi's eyes were starting to fail him. Deidara usually ended up blowing a bit too much off them for information purposes and Kisame simply didn't have the patience. Strangely enough Zetsu said that, despite being perfectly prepared to snack on them later, he didn't enjoy the practice.

Pein checked the clock on the wall of the medical bay, plenty of time for a late lunch. "Do you want to have a go, Sakura?"

Sakura looked up from where she was pulling the bloodied sheets off the examination table to give the leader a stern look. "No thanks, medics don't do torture, it's sort of an unwritten law."

Hidan pulled a face, "But why? Kabuto used to do it all the time."

"Kabuto's an ass."

"Yeah, he is a bit of a dick." The priest cracked his neck and nodded. "Still though, when he made that guy's face explode, that was pretty sweet, seriously!"

Deidara laughed, sure Kabuto was a creep but man did he have some good party pieces. Kisame rolled his eyes at the excitement coming from the two younger men. In some ways he was seriously lucky he had Itachi as his partner. At least from the horror stories that Kakuzu told them all.

"Do you feel up to making lunch Kisame?"

Kisame stretched, enjoying the feeling of not having a huge hole in his stomach. Scratching at the new flesh a little he rubbed his neck and nodded. Pein nodded, both men ignoring Sakura's squawking that the shark should stay in bed, and led his troops out of the medical wing and towards the kitchen.

Sakura tutted at them in disgust, but washed her hands off and ran to catch up. Her professionalism didn't extend to missing out on a meal.

XXXXX

Sakura managed to force Kisame to sit down after the food was made and doled the food out herself. Kakuzu looked rather pleased with this arrangement. Being well over a hundred his views tended towards the old fashioned. He wanted to say that women should stay at home while the men did the business of fighting but he had learned through painful experience that his views were no longer current. Konan would have turned him inside out and he doubted this slip of a girl was much different. Stupid females and their stupid views on equality. Madara would agree but he was such a lecher that the idea of women fighting excited him much more than it should. Kakuzu sighed as he pushed the food around his plate; he truly was surrounded by idiots.

They had all just started to eat, chattering about the lightening ninja, Sakura refusing to believe that their leaders were as stupid as they appeared to be, when another harried looking ninja ran into the room.

Pein glared at the spoon raised halfway to his mouth, "I'm going to put a sign on the damn door. What is it now?"

The ninja, looking suspiciously fresh out of the academy, saluted. He looked rather disheartened to only receive some grunts and general derision from the assembled group. "There have been reports of a large group approaching the village, on the south side. Your instructions?"

"Fucking hell, again? Didn't we just kill half their fucking village an hour ago, seriously?"

Pein raised a hand to quiet down the grumbling, "How long until they reach the outer perimeter?"

"Around an hour."

"I shall deal with it. You may go."

The ninja bowed deeply, missing the way everyone rolled their eyes at him and left the room. Hidan mock-saluted him as he left, causing the others to snigger.

Pein shot him a look, "You could learn something about respect from him, Hidan."

"I respect you, and Konan, and fishy, and this bitch. The rest of you can blow me, seriously."

"Charming. Everyone eat and we shall go investigate. You will come along Sakura."

Sakura looked sceptical, "What do you need me for? You've got all these assholes to deal with it."

"Just a little murderous outing for you, so you can be impressed with our power and ruthlessness and so on and so forth. Also I have a sneaking suspicion that this group will be more leaf than lightening. Your presence should make them reveal themselves quite nicely if that is the case."

"I'm pretty sure they know it's you lot who've kidnapped me and you sure know how stupid most of them are – they'd give themselves away if they saw a tree with an Akatsuki cloak on."

Pein almost smiled at her, it was so refreshing to see honesty about one's comrades. "While I do consider myself to be a professional, I'm not going to pass up baiting idiots, especially leaf idiots."

Sakura rolled her eyes, snatching a piece of duck from Itachi's plate and ignoring his quiet outrage. "Well why didn't you just say so? Just don't kill any of them."

She waved away their incredulous looks, "I'm serious. Beat them up if you want, but I'll be really pissed off if you kill them." She finished with a hard look at Kakuzu and Zetsu, accurately predicting they would be the least likely to co-operate with this request.

"But, what if they try to kill us, yeah?" Deidara tamped down the feeling of hysteria at the thought of not being able to blow up the people he wanted to.

"Incapacitate them, I mean shit, you guys can do that can't you? More of a challenge." Sakura said the last part slyly, seeing that she had at least got Itachi thinking with it.

Kisame stabbed his fork into his dinner, "I like killing," he grumbled.

"You can kill all the lightening ninjas you want. That's enough right?"

"Look bitch, I have to kill people, it's my fucking thing, seriously." Hidan gave her a balanced and reasoned look, as if what he'd just said wasn't crazy.

"And do you know just how much cash, cold hard cash, I could rake in from those morons? It would just about repair all the damage you caused." Kakuzu's mouth watered slightly at the thought of that much money.

"Do you people want me to cause trouble? 'Cos if you start killing my friends that pushes this from all comedy buddy kidnapping into serious business."

Pein shared an amused glance with Konan. "I'm aware this situation is strange ..."

He was cut off by snorts and chuckles from the table. He glared them into submission.

"As I was saying, as much as you aren't a typical prisoner we can't just give into demands like that. Who would respect an evil organisation that only incapacitates enemies? Next they'd all be expecting a 'sorry for the reign of terror, love your evil overlords' cards."

Pein checked the position of the sun out of the window, he really had to find that watch Konan had bought him. "We shall continue this conversation later. Come along."

Groaning the Akatsuki trailed out after their leader. Sakura was rather excited about getting to leave the building for the first time in days, even if it might to be face off against her comrades. The headquarters were surprisingly nice and all but a girl needed sunlight once in a while. She frowned at that thought when she remembered where she was. As usual she was being flanked by Deidara and Hidan. Why couldn't men who were just as good looking but not mental or actively trying to fuck her way of life up be attracted to her? It just wasn't fair. Maybe it was her; she was obviously attracted to the wrong sort of man. She clearly gave off a vibe that brought in the crazies. She should be thanking her lucky stars that it hadn't spread to someone like Orochimaru (unlikely, given his preference for pubescent boys) or someone even worse, like Danzou.

Still, Deidara and Hidan were certainly easy on the eyes. No harm in looking, now was there?

The civilians gave them all wary looks as they paraded through the village. The men made an effort to look as imposing as possible, Kisame especially enjoying the terrified glances he received. The people even seemed a little scared of Sakura. Evidently they hadn't forgotten her storming around and threatening people a few days ago. She almost wished she had a cloak to swish like the rest of them. It was becoming clearer why people wanted to be involved in ridiculous organisations like this one – damn if it didn't make you feel powerful!

The guards on the south wall of the village nodded as they approached, pointing to a not very well concealed group of advancing ninja.

"They broke cover around ten minutes ago and have been approaching in that fashion since."

All heads turned towards Sakura who wrinkled her nose. "Look, I know some of the folks from my village aren't exactly up for ninja of the year, but even the stupidest ones can do better than this."

"Are you quite sure about that?" Pein looked thoroughly unconvinced.

"I seem to remember Naruto running around in circles and fighting the grass when I engaged him in combat."

"That doesn't count; you have an irritating genetic advantage."

"Itachi's just worried something might fuck up his hair, yeah?"

"You cannot talk Deidara; did you see the electricity bill last month? I'm going to put a limiter on the shower so you can't spend all fucking day in there." Kakuzu felt the other members were lucky to be part of this organisation; they couldn't possibly have managed to live on their own and sort out their own finances.

"Ah eat it, besides, why aren't you getting on Hidan's ass? That's the fourth time this year we've had to replace the grouting 'cos that fucking idiot's stained it."

"You better shut the fuck up blondie, or I'll do my sacrificing in your fucking bed."

"Keep your weird shit to yourself, freak."

"Could we focus please? Although I agree we do need to do something about the hot water." Konan put her hand on Pein's arm sympathetically. The guards were listening in and having a smirk at their expense. Sakura thought Pein looked oddly defeated, she supposed having to put up with these idiots would wear even the strongest mind down. Probably why Madara was such a goddamn fruitcake.

"Sakura, you don't believe they are from your village?"

"Sakura leaned over the wall, rolling her eyes at the way they all crowded in on her in case she decided to jump, and scrutinised the approaching group. "Naw, look they're close enough to see us. Everyone I know would already be pointing and shouting and being idiots by now."

"It could be a group of the more _sophisticated_ members of your village." The emphasis Pein put on 'sophisticated' made it clear exactly how unlikely he thought this was.

"You know, me and 'Tachi here are getting pretty offended here, our village doesn't suck that hard."

"My name is not 'Tachi." Itachi's protests were completely ignored. He huffed slightly, the Uchiha equivalent of a raging tantrum, looking to Kisame for support. Kisame decided not to get involved.

"Yeah it does bitch. Apart from you and little red-eye, sometimes - when he isn't being a massive bellend, leaf sucks dick."

"What about Kakashi?"

Deidara rolled his eyes, "You can't take a man who actually cried when the new Icha Icha movie was announced seriously, yeah?"

"You guys know about that then?"

Kisame nodded, "We were in the same cafe."

Kakuzu sniffed, "It was seriously undignified. He is a grown-ass man."

"He's got issues, seriously."

Everyone turned to look at the priest. "What you fuckers looking at?"

"A man with no self-awareness apparently."

Hidan gave them all a dirty look, muttering filthy things under his breath.

Pein sighed before turning to look at the now even worse concealed group that would reach the wall in around ten minutes. "Perhaps they are lulling us into a false sense of security by only pretending to be thoroughly incompetent?"

The others nodded, most of them draping themselves over the wall to wait, when suddenly the approaching group disappeared into thin air.

"What the fuck?"

Pein rubbed the bridge of his nose, "I spoke too soon didn't I?"

Konan nodded sympathetically, rubbing her partner's arm soothingly.

XXXXX

R/R


	9. Chapter 9

First chapter without a line break for a while! Loads of action I think, and a few giggles. Thank you so much everyone for all your lovely reviews! Bonus points to anyone who identifies where Madara's opening line comes from. Obviously I do not own Naruto or the programme said line comes from. Seriously, this bloody fic has a mind of its own. Hope you all enjoy!

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The Akatsuki, for once caught off guard, surged forward to the wall. Sakura frantically ordered her brain to accept she was only enjoying being all pressed up against these men because she hadn't had a proper date in a while. With this denial firmly in place she turned her attention to figuring out what the hell was going on.

While the other Akatsuki were focussed on the ground under the wall, Pein had his face tipped up to the heavens. Under his breath he railed at any omnipotent deity that happened to be listening. Things had been going so well recently. He was a feared and respected ninja, leader and statesman. His organisation was making money hand over fist. Even Konan had gotten over her badly concealed crush on the ridiculous copy-ninja. Then his men had to go and discover the ultimate force of chaos, seemingly contained within one tiny kunoichi with pink hair and his precious routines had been fucked up beyond belief. When all this was over he was going to have a holiday. A long holiday. A long holiday with no idiotic underlings pushing up his blood pressure. Opening his eyes he looked down to see Konan giving him a sympathetic look. Taking a deep breath he composed himself and began concentrating on the task in hand.

There was no trace of the mysterious ninjas and the ground wasn't disturbed in anyway to indicate they were underneath it. A quick look up in the trees and sky showed they weren't attempting to attack that way.

"Well, what the fuck are we gonna do?"

Zetsu rubbed at his leaves, having an internal debate between his two sides, "Perhaps this is a diversion?"

Everyone paused, then Pein whirled on the guards who hadn't moved despite the very obvious cue, "Check all the perimeters, and for fuck's sake investigate _anything_ unusual!"

The guards jumped to attention and dispersed throughout the village. Pein ground his teeth together, his holiday would have to be postponed until he had re-trained all the ninja in this bloody village. Honestly, he shouldn't have to spell his orders out like that. Konan rolled her eyes at the vein that appeared on her partner's forehead.

Sakura pushed herself up on the wall to check the mysterious group weren't hiding under and against it out of sight. It was extremely unlikely but less likely and much stupider things had been happening recently. Kakuzu smacked the slavering priest on the back of the head for staring at her ass while Kisame gave Deidara a very unimpressed look for the same. The blonde had the grace to look at the floor but Hidan simply grinned unrepentantly and winked at her while she glared at the pair of them. Konan smiled indulgently at the two of them; she couldn't decide who she was rooting for the most.

Pein unclenched his jaw, "Well, I think we should investigate, don't you all?"

"Kinda looks like a trap to me. Like they want us to go down and check it out so they can fuck our shit up." Kisame's excellent point was undermined by the fact he was unwrapping Samehada in preparation for doing just that.

Pein tugged on his lip piercing a little, "Of course Kisame. Hidan, get down there."

Itachi looked put out; he was usually the one who got to talk all the sense.

Sakura thought Hidan looked far more excited than he had any right to be as he pulled the cover off his scythe and vaulted the wall. She also certainly didn't eye him up as he cleared the wall in one smooth motion. Damn, but if nice normal guys just couldn't compete. When she escaped, eventually, she was going to go join a nunnery or something for a while to sort her head out regarding guys.

Feeling her questioning stare Pein shrugged, "He can't die. I'm merely taking advantage of my resources."

Sakura shook her head and turned back to the clearing, listening to Deidara muttering about 'manager-bullshit' under his breath.

Meanwhile Hidan had reached the area where the people had disappeared and was looking around. Seeing no evidence of what had been going on, he spread his free arm to indicate there was nothing there. The group on the wall shared a glance before preparing to jump down there themselves. Deidara opened one of his clay-bags and was almost over when Zetsu shot out a hand and grabbed the back of his cloak to stop him. All heads turned to the plant-man whose both sides were clearly concentrating on something the rest of them couldn't sense. Kisame, with his heightened animal instincts, was the next to feel the building vibrations under their feet. The rest were frozen in place as they waited for their more attuned friends to tell them what the hell was going on. Deidara in particular, on top of the wall in a weird position, wanted to know which way he was going.

Suddenly they saw Hidan crouch into a defensive stance after the earth under his feet shifted enough to unbalance him. The rumbling intensified to the point where the stones were shaking loose dust and the ground under the wall was roiling. Deidara leapt back off the wall before it pitched him over it and Sakura grabbed onto an extremely disgruntled Kakuzu to keep her balance. Itachi blinked rapidly to try and focus his damaged eyes while Pein held Konan close to him, keeping them both still against the movement.

The rumbling intensified to the point where it was almost deafening and Pein was getting seriously concerned about the state of his village fortifications. However almost as the noise was overwhelming it stopped dead and left the Akatsuki, and pink-haired kidnapee, with a ringing in their ears and eyes full of dust.

Down below Hidan rose cautiously out of the splayed crouch he'd been forced into, looking around warily. After a few beats of silence nothing seemed to be happening so he stood up further. On the wall Zetsu had been thinking about blending back into the wall now it seemed to be safe but he drew in a sharp breath and spun to look at Hidan.

The priest barely had time to tense before there was a grinding, whirring noise and several large barbed spikes shot out of the ground and sped towards him. With a few filthy and inventive curses he launched himself backwards to avoid them. He dodged the first few but as he twisted to duck one that was about to take his head off he couldn't miss the last two that speared him through the chest and thigh.

"Ah, for fuck's _sake_!" His tone was more one of irritation rather than the pain and shock Sakura had been rather expecting.

After a second Sakura noticed that everyone was staring at her with a variety of amused looks. She realised she'd gasped and thrown her hands to her face. She laughed sheepishly and put them down, "Sorry, gut reaction."

Pein waved his hand at her, "You won't have to do much, he'll be good as new soon."

"Unfortunately," Kakuzu muttered sourly under his breath.

Pein rolled his eyes at the pissy bounty hunter and calculated the risks on sending any more of his men down to ground level. Kisame and Deidara were quite clearly pumped for risking their lives, as usual, and they were going to have to go and pick the spikes out of Hidan anyway.

He gestured for them to clear the wall and was inordinately pleased when they all followed his instructions, even Sakura, although she did look rather dubious that this wasn't a stupid idea. Pein pursed his lips, some kunoichis, no respect.

With surprising speed and grace for such a big man, Kisame was the first to Hidan who had been pulled off centre and into a strange contortion by the chains pinning him to the ground. The priest didn't look apprehensive that someone with hands the size of spades was about to try and pull the chains out of his body but Sakura certainly was. Ducking between the two she slapped Kisame's hands away muttering about flesh wounds, contaminations and idiot immortals. The shark grinned and winked at Hidan who snickered, and here he had been thinking the shark was all on little red-eyes' side.

Ignoring the fact the chains were coated with blood, most things she had to deal with were after all, she ran her fingers along them, searching for a weakness.

Hidan grinned lasciviously at her, "Gonna kiss it better bitch?"

She gave him a seriously unimpressed look before grabbing the chain in both hands and pulling, a thick metal link giving way to her enhanced strength. At the sound of snapping metal the heads of the others turned to the two of them. Zetsu winced, why were these men so obsessed with women who could tear them to shreds? He would be perfectly happy with a woman who was kind, caring, delicate and a good cook. Sure, he could see why Hidan wanted a fierce woman, he was a freak who relished any form of pain but the others?

Deidara almost wished Itachi's dumbass little brother would turn up again so he could see that super-strength in action again. He also wished that idiot Hidan wasn't stealing all of her attention. Kisame smirked at the pouting artist, those two were in deep. He wondered what odds Kakuzu would give on either of the two of them winning her. Or maybe Itachi would somehow get over his crippling social retardation and become the dark horse? Of course this was the man who had mangekyou'd the poor working girl Kisame had bought him into next week for trying to undo his trousers. "She was acting in a most unbecoming manner Kisame, she was clearly a woman of loose virtue." Kisame cringed, honestly, as if the decor in the place hadn't given away the virtue of the women within. Maybe his bets were better spread between the two who had actually touched a woman before. Then he was going to teach Itachi the things he clearly needed to know. The shark knew he had potential, after all he made his brother dance to a merry little tune all the time. Kisame suddenly frowned, maybe Itachi was playing them all. A suspicious look towards the Uchiha heir revealed nothing, Itachi looked as blank as ever.

Sakura had moved onto the other chain and even though Hidan had been staring down her top she took pity on him. He closed his eyes in bliss as she whipped the shorter length through the wound in his shoulder, a creepy grin spreading over his face. She gave him a fairly disgusted look and did the same for the one through his thigh. He made a noise low in his throat and bit his lip. Sakura backed up and shook her head at him. She caught Deidara's eye, who just shrugged and smiled. She smiled back, unable to decide which one of them was better looking, more attractive or less of a freak. Definitely had to sign up to that nunnery later.

Pein spared a moment to check that his immortal was free before rolling his eyes at the moment between the medic and the blonde. Sappy bullshit had no place in an S-class criminal organisation. Konan held her hands together as she enjoyed the moment, there just wasn't enough romance in this organisation. Pein did his best to ignore this, he was going to strangle that girl if Konan started going on about cande-lit dinners again.

When Hidan had managed to compose himself and threaten the artist with hand gestures over Sakura's head for flirting with her he waited for Sakura to heal him. Sure he would eventually heal himself, especially as he'd 'donated' so many Lightening ninjas to Jashin over the past two days, but it would take time they probably didn't have. Sure enough, once she'd finished watching someone not die from massive trauma and blood-loss, she drew chakra to her hands and tentatively began fixing the priest up.

Unsurprisingly his chakra felt incredibly weird and his wounds sealed in about a millionth of the time it would take a normal human. Seeing her shock he preened, running a bloodied hand through his hair.

"Pretty fucking awesome, eh bitch?"

Sakura, too distracted by the way the flesh was knitting itself together so seamlessly under her touch, nodded dumbly. Behind them Deidara crossed his arms and sulked, did all women find the ability to survive stupid injuries attractive?

Itachi doing his best to ignore the cock-waving contest behind him thought he had caught a flicker of something out of the corner of his eye but he could no longer be sure. Hopefully Sakura could get over years of ingrained fear and hatred and take a look at his eyes without frying his brain. While Itachi pondered whether flowers would be an appropriate, 'I know I'm a mass-murderer who tortured one of your best friends, sensei and various villagers, and wants to murder your other friend but I'd really appreciate you fixing the thing I'll use to do more evil stuff' gesture, Pein knew he'd spotted some figures moving within the trees.

Clicking his fingers the Akatsuki gathered around him in a split-second. Sakura wasn't really sure what she was meant to do so she decided to stand behind KIsame, figuring that he would both protect her and stop her actually having to do anything. After all, she was still a Konoha ninja and couldn't really be seen to be fighting along with these guys to possible allies of her village.

Deidara caught her eye and grinned wildly, the mouths on his hands already working overtime to provide him with plenty of explosives. Kisame had Samehada pointing at the trees, although he took a minute to look over his shoulder and check she was ok, which she thought was really nice, if not at all in keeping with his popular image. Pein had pushed Konan behind him slightly and Kakuzu had pushed Hidan in front of him slightly. Zetsu was hanging around at the back of the group, both sides rather peckish and looking for a snack. Itachi didn't look any different although Sakura was convinced he had a tiny bit of a five o'clock shadow appearing. Given that she was practically an impartial viewer of the situation she had to say that the group certainly had aesthetic appeal in the way it was arranged. They obviously practiced this sort of thing.

As quickly as they had disappeared earlier, a group of five men appeared in front of the massed Akatsuki. Peering around Kisame's massive bulk, Sakura didn't need to be a medic to diagnose that these guys were fucked up. All of them looked as if their muscles were about to eat the rest of them, they were completely bald except for one who had a seriously ill-advised moustache, and they all looked seconds away from total roid-rage. Quite frankly, although they were clearly meant to look terrifying they just reminded Sakura of failed, C-list wrestlers. Clearly this opinion was shared among the Akatsuki as there was some distinctly unkind snickering from the assembled group.

Either this was not what the weirdos wanted to hear, or perhaps they had heard it once too often but the laughter at their expense triggered a hulk reaction and before the Akatsuki knew it they were all engaged in vicious combat. Clearly the freaks were not as stupid or useless as they appeared. Itachi almost got skewered when the one with the moustache shot a huge blade out of somewhere and Kakuzu was forced to withdraw his threads when one of the others started cutting through them. Before launching into his own attack Kisame had slammed his arm into Sakura's stomach and knocked her back out of the fight radius. Pein and Konan, being used to each other's fighting styles were fighting what appeared to be the leader of the group while the others dealt with the rest.

Sakura stood on the sidelines, feeling a little confused as to what was happening, a little relieved no one was paying her any attention and a little pissed off she wasn't getting to kick any ass. These freaks were obviously good though, she winced as Zetsu got a crack in the ribs.

Pein was seriously pissed off. Turned out these things were Lightning ninja, at least, that's what was on the headband that had been sewn into the flesh of the leader's shoulder. Honestly, he may be the driving force behind one of the most feared groups on the planet but he didn't go for gauche shit like that. His men were completely capable of being scary on their own merits, without steroids.

Hidan was seriously enjoying himself and a quick look at Deidara revealed he was the same. A proper challenge for once! And there was a good chance Kakuzu might get killed! Damn if his day wasn't getting better and better!

The battle raged on for a good few minutes while Sakura danced around on the sidelines, throwing imaginary punches along with her new friends and laughing when they connected.

Itachi was getting a little anxious, usually when there was this many Akatsuki in one place battles never lasted this long. A glance at his leader showed the Pein was clearly thinking along the same lines.

Hidan almost bent completely over backwards to avoid a slice from a battle-axe, again pulled from nowhere, and leapt away to get his bearings. "What the fuck are these guys, seriously?"

Deidara cursed, quite loudly yet eloquently when one avoided yet another of his exploding tricks. "This is really pissing me off, yeah!"

Zetsu slid into place next to them, looking at the ground a little sheepishly with his white side while his black concentrated on making his whole body avoid a shower of shuriken. "I may have forgotten to mention that I heard a rumour Lightening had a super-soldier creation programme."

"You may have forgotten to mention it? May have forgotten to mention it?" Pein deflected three kunais with one of his own, his voice getting higher pitched and shriller as the sentence went on.

"It must have slipped my mind."

"After this I'm gonna slip my foot up your ass, seriously!" Hidan threw himself under the scope of one of Itach's genjutsu traps, his clothes soaked from one of Kisame's jutsus.

"Concentrate!" Konan's clear voice cut across the noise of the battle and their arguing.

Sakura was relieved to see that, although they certainly had super-human attributes, they didn't seem to be able to heal. Zetsu had got one with a particularly nasty poison and it wouldn't be long before he dropped. Kakuzu had fried another with a well-placed electrical attack and if the smoke coming out from under its hairline was anything to go by it didn't have long left. A huge crashing noise from the right drew her attention, Kisame had obviously drained the chakra out of another one, giving Itachi free rein to get in there with his terrifying katana skills. Pein and Konan had ripped right into the leader of the freaks, most of its guts were hanging out but it's addled brain didn't seem to have figured that out quite yet.

The remaining member of the weirdos was missing all of its arm and most of its shoulder thanks to a particularly well-crafted snake, if Deidara did say so himself. However something yanked his leg out from under him and the remaining freak loomed over him. The guy seemed relatively unconcerned about the blood pouring out of his chest and brandished a huge battle-axe over the much smaller ninja. The artist's muscle memory had his body twisting away but it turned out he didn't need to.

"SHANNARO!" The freak's skull may have had a metal plate in it but it didn't stand a chance against Sakura's fist as it crushed everything before it.

Deidara grinned up at her stupidly, trying to figure out what he liked about women before she had come along. Hidan sulked, just because it was impossible for him to be vulnerable.

"Damn pinky, try to leave us guys some masculinity." Kisame didn't even bother wiping off the blood before swinging Samehada up onto his shoulder.

Sakura dusted her fist off and grinned, pulling Deidara to his feet. He laughed and swung an arm round her shoulders, smirking smugly at the angry priest.

Pein breathed out, relieved that his complement of men were intact and there only seemed to be superficial injuries. Even Sakura had willingly picked a side and defended them. Everything could hopefully go back onto an even kilter now. Surely those were Lightening's main weapons and now they'd been fucked up in a serious way, the war would come to a swift conclusion.

Suddenly the exuberant atmosphere chilled to a degree above freezing.

"Good afternoon, my little chicks and cocks!" Madara's silky tones announced the presence of the crazy Uchiha.

Pein folded his arms, unimpressed, "I see you've managed to avoid all the hard work Madara, again."

Madara shrugged, "What can I say Pein? I'm more of the administrative type. And on that note, I've got a fun little mission for some of you."

Everyone in the clearing (except Sakura) groaned, missions straight from the horse's head were usually hellish hard, cruel and unusual.

"Don't be like that! This one will be great! Besides, it'll be the perfect opportunity to introduce our new member into how we operate."

"Eh what?" Sakura's question was completely ignored.

"Who's going?" Pein looked rather nervous, hoping against hope it wouldn't be him or Konan.

"Well, there's a lot of information that I want gathered regarding those little experiments of Lightening's. It's only right the two best teams should go, and Deidara does need a new partner, Sakura dear will fit in perfectly."

Pein grinned, Madara wanted to send Itachi, Kisame, Hidan, Kakuzu, Deidara and Sakura. It was like all his holiday dreams just came true.

"I am not part of this!" Sakura had her hands firmly on her hips, her voice getting a little shrill.

Madara waved a hand, "Minor detail, my dear, now I want you all to move out in the morning. I want all the information you can get on those experiments, and I mean all of it." His voice dropped ominously at the end, promising serious retribution for failure.

He disappeared in the blink of an eye. The tired ninjas looked at each other wearily. Sakura was fuming. Pein was planning his holiday.

"You'll get paid extremely well for this mission Sakura."

"Shut up Pein."

Pein chuckled.

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	10. Chapter 10

Sorry for the long wait, I had serious writer's block. Seriously, couldn't put a word on the paper without them being all shit. I seem to be over it now but this is, again, mostly a filler chapter. Who am I kidding, it's just filler. Fluff at the end so bring a sick bag. Hope you all enjoy and once again thanks for all your brilliant reviews, we aren't too far from the magical 500 barrier, when I might actually weep with joy. Have fun.

Oh, and I was re-reading the whole thing through and I've noticed loads of dumb little mistakes. I don't have a beta (too used to ruthlessly policing my university work) but I'm thinking I should get one to catch the mistakes that slip through my grammar net. Any takers? Preferably someone who is prepared to be ruthless with anything they think is dumb or shit about the story itself as well as my comma use. Send me a PM if you're up for it, ta.

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The chatter in the Akatsuki kitchen a few hours later was mostly centred around what super powers they would want should their evil overlords ever put the effort into evil science.

"I want to be able to fuck with people's minds, you know, like little red-eye does."

"You're already immortal, what more do you want?"

"Sometimes I think my approach is too straightforward, seriously, I'd broaden my range when it comes to fucking people up." He scratched his chin contemplatively.

"Which part of all your stupid rituals and fucking performance is straightforward?"

Hidan curled his lip, goddamn heathens, "That isn't a fucking performance, how else are idiots supposed to know the significance of being sacrificed?"

Kakuzu rolled his eyes, putting his pen down to mark the page in his ledger. You couldn't be too careful in this place; the surrounding cretins refused to respect other people's property. "You're the only idiot around here. Kisame has a straightforward approach. You are a drama-queen."

Evidently having an invigorating fight to the death was good for the priest's anger issues as he just waved his hand as if to dismiss that comment. "What I really mean, if I can get a fucking word in, is that all the sacrifices I do are purely physical. I'm sure Jashin-sama would be stoked if I could torture them mentally as well."

Zetsu shook his head from where he was busy darning the cloaks that had been damaged in the battle. "You weird me out. _**Even me.**_"

Hidan leaned back, crossing his arms behind his head. "You fuckers know it makes sense, I'd get them to give me a sharingan, only better, and less likely to make you go shit-hot crazy."

Itachi looked positively enraged with his slightly furrowed brows. Kisame came away from his cooking to pat him on the shoulder and prevent him breaking the relative peace.

"Maybe they could give you a brain? Wouldn't that be fucking something Hidan?"

"Come on, Kakuzu, they'd be mad scientists, yeah, not magicians."

The men snickered while Hidan lazily gave them all the finger. "Fuck you guys, seriously. Come on then blondie, what would you have? You've already got freaky shit all over you."

"Fuck off Hidan, I'd have them make me able to explode but all my bits would come together and I'd be ready to do it again." Deidara's eyes were oddly bright and far away while discussing this, oblivious to the shared looks of derision between his comrades.

"Well, colour me fucking surprised, what about you stitches?"

"I'd get them to install a cretin-repelling device. Pein would have to give me a new partner then. In fact, I might have to get a new job altogether."

Deidara jeered at the bounty hunter along with the rest before turning to Kisame, again looking like a perverse house-wife. "What would you have, Kisame?"

The huge man paused, tapping his plastic stirrer against the pan to knock the liquid off. "I dunno, I'm pretty damn awesome as it is."

He laughed as he dodged several projectiles, expertly catching a pen before it landed in his prepared rice. Hidan studied the shark from across the table, "How about not being blue?"

"What's wrong with being blue like? Had me many a lady compliment me on it."

"Hell if you pay up front they'll say whatever you want!" The priest ducked under the table laughing as Kisame took a swipe at him.

Hidan's skin was saved by Sakura's flamboyant entry, slamming open the door so hard it practically split. Evidently her attempts to forcibly remind Pein and Konan that she was an unwilling prisoner and would not be toddling off to do the evil bidding of her kidnappers had been unsuccessful. The men were secretly relieved, well Kakuzu and Zetsu were mostly indifferent, but the majority were. Hidan eyed her up from under the table; she looked pissed as all hell. His eyes went a little misty, she was just wonderful. Also if he crouched down just so he could almost see up her skirt. However that little experiment was cut short by Kakuzu, who knew him far too well, and distracted him by means of a solid kick in the ribs.

Taking a good measure of satisfaction in the pained yelp from under the table Kisame decided to head off any trouble by distracting the angry young woman before she considered taking it out on one of them. Well, that was a little silly, that was probably the first thing she considered but he planned to get there before she thought about actually acting on that idea.

Crossing the kitchen in a few strides he thrust a large knife into her hand and directed her to the large pile of vegetables stacked up next to a chopping board. "The first thing about learning to cook is preparing your ingredients."

Ignoring with some difficulty the dangerous look she turned on him he pointed to the pile and asked her to dice them up. "You know your way around a knife; this will be a piece of piss."

After a tense moment where it seemed as though Sakura might just lose her temper and start using one of Kisame's prized cooking knives in a manner it wasn't strictly designed for she blew out a sigh and turned to the board. The rest of the men who had been frozen in anticipation relaxed silently behind her. There was no conversation until she had mushed a few innocent vegetables beyond recognition and the stiff line of her shoulders softened a bit.

Deidara always liked living on the edge so he was the first to open his mouth and break the tense silence. "If you could be engineered like those freaks earlier, what would you have done?"

Apparently he was the correct person because although she turned a hard look on him she managed not to fling the knife at his head. "Depends, do I have to be bald like those idiots?"

Deidara and Itachi paled, that thought hadn't crossed their minds. On instinct the blonde pushed his hands into his locks while the Uchiha stroked the end of his pony-tail in a comforting manner. The rest of the men shared a disgusted look, although Zetsu was desperately trying to picture Deidara without any hair.

"You two need your man cards fucking revoked, goddamn." Hidan was sure he'd look just as damn sexy bald.

Kakuzu gripped his pen and ignored them all harder.

Kisame reached over and detached Itachi's death grip on his hair, "Supposing you didn't have to be?"

Sakura leaned her hip against the worktop and tapped her foot, her classic thinking pose. "I'd have ... actually I'd get them to make me like you Kisame."

They all turned to her, picturing how the blue would clash with her hair. Kisame looked inordinately pleased by this, giving the others a smug smile. Even Itachi looked very confused by this statement so Sakura explained a bit further.

"I want ass-loads of chakra to play with. I could do whatever the hell I wanted if I was never gonna run dry. Nobody would die around me that's for sure."

Kisame just nodded, "Yeah, see? I am pretty damn awesome. God I love being me."

Sakura laughed, these people were such freaks, before the shark began showing her how to make a proper stock.

"I think you're wasting your time Kisame, I've never got the hang of cooking." Sakura wrinkled her nose dubiously at the content of the pan she was stirring.

"You've never had a genius like me teaching before, now don't let that stick to the bottom or it'll burn and it'll taste all kinds of fucked up."

"You're telling me all these mass-murderers can get an apron on and whip up a three course meal?"

"Well, Itachi can't – "

"God no, his food is fucking terrible!"

"We all had the screaming shits for like a week, yeah?"

Itachi attempted to glare them all to death before looking to Kisame to support him. Kisame wrung his hands in his apron, an image that would be forever burned into Sakura's memory, while he thought up how to best phrase his response.

"Well, it's not great, but he doesn't have time to practice – "

Again the shark was cut off by the boos and jeers of his fellows who again threw anything they had to hand at him. This time it was Sakura who protected the dinner by catching a handful of clay from the air and flicking it back to its owner with a warning look. Kakuzu slammed his hands down on the table after Hidan plucked the pen out of them to fling at Kisame. He muttered a few filthy things under his breath before pulling another pen out of his pocket and with an air of pained resignation, returning to his ledgers.

"You've got something brown on your nose there Gills."

"Don't defend the little bitch, his cooking's ass, he'll fucking live, seriously."

Kisame looked apologetically at Itachi before turning back to his cooking. Sakura rolled her eyes at them all. She was clearly going to have to go on this mission. Pein had told her that if she didn't want to die a very painful, messy and embarrassing death then she had better not piss off Madara. Not pissing him off meant doing everything he said and no backchat. So for the foreseeable future, until the old coot got bored and stopped caring, she was an honorary Akatsuki member. That really pissed her off. Still, it wasn't the fault of these morons; they all had to do the weird shit Madara came up with too. She just hoped they wouldn't all kill each other during said stupid mission.

Hidan and Kakuzu loathed each other with an unequalled passion. Deidara hated Itachi and it was probably reciprocated, as far as Itachi's lack of emotions would allow. Kisame was unfortunately stuck in the middle, being so easy going he was nearly always the referee. Sakura wasn't at all sure how she fitted into the dynamic and whether she ever would. As much as she liked these guys, she wanted to get back to some sense of normality and with them around it wasn't likely. Still, would be a damn shame to give up so much eye-candy.

"So what usually happens on your missions? No offence to you guys, but you don't seem like you do many undercover, gathering information with no killing or blowing stuff up type missions." Sakura added her prepared vegetables to the stock with a flourish.

"Actually it's Kisame and Itachi that do most undercover missions, sometimes Kakuzu."

"You get the seven foot tall _blue_ guy to do your stealth missions?"

The men tried to look affronted, but it was kind of hard when the facts were laid out like that. They all looked at each other, waiting to see who was going to pick up the ball on that one. Eventually, it was Itachi who came up with the explanation.

"Deidara and Hidan find it physically impossible not to draw attention to themselves at all times. Zetsu cannot adequately disguise the fact he has a large plant covering his head and Pein and Konan are too well known. With well placed hats and cloaks, Kisame is able to hide his appearance and when in civilian areas his large amount of chakra means he can keep up a henge indefinitely."

His brows creased when he realised everyone was staring at him and Sakura especially looked stunned. Even Kakuzu had stopped balancing their expenses. "Is something the matter?"

Hidan forced himself to snap his jaw closed, his teeth clacking together. Deidara didn't feel the need to do so, leaving it hanging open in shock. "Has he ever said that much? Ever?"

"Not all in one go." Kisame barely managed to restrain himself from putting a hand to the Uchiha's forehead to check if there was something wrong with him.

Sakura's subconscious allowed her to move the pan that was bubbling over off the heat. "Even when he fucks with Sasuke he doesn't say that much."

Kisame bit his lip to prevent the grin threatening to split his face; it was the hormones, it must be! He must want to actively talk to Sakura and he was getting a bit of practice in! He was sensible enough not to share this theory, not much fancying the idea of being murdered in his sleep by a pissed off and socially awkward partner.

Itachi merely rolled his eyes and reached over to snag another mini rice-ball from the centre of the table to stave off his hunger until the meal was ready. Slowly the shock began to wear off and the chatter turned back to the mission. Lightening was a big place after all, the six of them would be needed to cover the amount of ground while Zetsu, Pein, Konan and Madara continued the mopping up of any further Lightening attacks on Rain.

"You don't think they'll notice me? If they are allied with Konoha just now, surely the message that one of their medics has been grabbed by you guys will have got around?"

"It's like Pein said, they're all dumber than shit. Fuck, if they can't notice a blue guy what makes you think pink hair will get their attention, seriously?"

"Yeah I guess so. So he said we leave in the morning, what time is morning around here?"

"Around ten or so, there's no real rush."

"Ten o'clock? Ten? Not like five? That's what morning means in Konoha missions."

"Probably explains why so many leafs have got a serious stick up their ass, yeah?"

"I should've come here years ago..."

XXXXX

Sakura's room in the base was surprisingly comfortable and stylish. She wasn't sure if, when she got home, she should pass this information along. It was widely regarded as fact that the Akatsuki all lived in either caves, or ridiculous Orochimaru-inspired super-bases underground, and their rooms were all full of the heads of their enemies and the assorted vermin generally associated with evil people. For her to correct them to the fact they stayed in airy, tastefully decorated rooms with ample storage space and the comfiest mattresses known to man might damage their evil persona. Besides, with how hard the PR department worked people wouldn't believe her anyway.

She had just picked a book from the shelf (a wide selection and not an evil text amongst them) and gotten into bed when there was a knock at the door. Figuring she'd been unconscious around these people a lot, there was no need to be all shy just because she wasn't fully dressed she told them to come in.

It was Deidara, carrying a couple of cups of tea and looking pleased she'd allowed him in. "Kisame made some tea," he gestured to the cups a little unnecessarily.

Sakura smiled, out of all of the Akatsuki he was definitely the cutest, all big blue eyes and shy grins. She waved her hand to the end of the bed to invite him to sit and took the cup he offered as he sat.

The air was a little tense and Sakura thought she knew exactly the reason, "I'm sorry, you know, about Sasori."

He scrunched up his face in a way that she found thoroughly adorable, "Why, yeah?"

"I'm not sorry I killed him, you guys were being real dicks that day. Besides, he was doing his best to kill me too, nearly did as well. But you two obviously got on, so I'm sorry you don't have that anymore."

He gave her a piercing look, his eyes unusually serious and making her feel suddenly exposed before they softened and he smiled wryly. "Work is work you know? I just do what I'm told."

"You were sitting on Gaara-kun when we first saw you." She raised her eyebrow but smirked slightly to show she wasn't getting at him.

"He literally ripped my arm off; I needed a fucking sit down after that."

"Then Kakashi cut off your other one, I remember. Team Gai won't admit it but you impressed the hell out of us being able to fight them off and get away without any arms."

He grinned cockily, tipping his chin back to preen. "Yeah I guess, I don't remember that day too well; think I blocked most of it out. Sasori-danna nearly killed you?"

"Yeah, look," ignoring his slight spluttering as she reached for the hem of the huge shirt she was sleeping in, one of Kisame's probably, she pulled it up far enough that he could see the thick, white scar from Sasori's blade.

"I know you're a medic and all, but how the hell did you survive that?" His fingers twitched as if he wanted to reach out and touch the scar, but knew better than to be so forward.

"If it hadn't been for Chiyobaa-sama I wouldn't have. I'd figured out the antidote to his poisons too, that was a real bastard but it was worth it for the look on his face when I didn't just fall over."

"Me and Sasori argued all the time about art, I do miss him, but I guess you proved me right once and for all, eternal art wasn't all he made it out to be."

Sakura smiled, remembering hearing the others describe their battle with the blonde artist, "Art is a bang."

He looked shocked for a second before smiling widely, fighting the heat rising to his cheeks. Seeing she had finished her tea he took her cup and headed for the door, "Goodnight Sakura."

"Goodnight Deidara."

XXXXX

The next morning Sakura was awake extremely early. Her body had evidently heard the word mission and was working on Konoha time. Consequently she found herself back in the kitchen, going through the Akatsuki's breakfast things to kill time until the rest of them woke up. Fixing herself up a huge plate, after all, she'd never been to Lightening, the food could be terrible there, she was sitting at the table when Hidan appeared. He was yawning and he hadn't slicked his hair down yet so it was flowing around his face. Seeing her he gave her a lazy smile before shuffling to the fridge to get his own breakfast. Evidently his gregarious personality only emerged after food and the huge cup of coffee he poured himself.

"That much coffee can't be good for you," she looked pointedly at it, conveniently ignoring her own cup.

He grunted slightly, pouring enough sugar into it that the spoon practically stood up by itself. He didn't form a coherent response for a few moments while he fuelled himself up. "Hell, bitch, it isn't like it's gonna kill me."

His voice was rough and quieter than normal as he wasn't having to shout over his comrades to get his point across. Sakura smiled behind her own cup, he was good company when he wasn't being obnoxious. "So you can't be killed right? Can you die of old age?"

Hidan sipped his coffee syrup, looking thoughtful. "I don't age the same; I've looked like this for a good few years now. I guess I'll die eventually but it all depends on what Jashin-sama has planned for me. I'm his favourite priest you know." The last statement was accompanied by an arrogant grin that made him even more handsome.

"Why doesn't that surprise me? So you have to sacrifice people, anything else?"

Hidan leaned forward onto the table, resting his chin on his arms, he seemed quietly pleased that his new favourite girl was interested in the most important thing in his life. "It's like other religions really, except a hundred times fucking better, seriously. There are rituals and prayers and only killing and torturing is ok. Things like stealing and raping and shit like that are a big no-no."

Sakura evidently looked confused because he rumbled a deep bass laugh, "You'll get goddamn wrinkles doing that, it's a religion, it's got rules same as any other."

"I guess, word is you can transform and shit? The rumours don't really go into specifics." She reached across to snag some food off his plate, a little touched that he pushed it closer to her to make it easier.

"I don't change into a fucking truck or anything. The change means that I'm linked to the soon-to-be-sacrificed. It's practical and impressive for bystanders, works on many levels."

She giggled, Hidan giving her a pleased smirk on hearing it. "I must admit, I'd never heard of Jashinism until I heard of you."

"Well, there aren't many of us. Jashin-sama chooses you; you can't just go down the local temple and convert. Us priests can recommend a person to him but if he's not interested you're fucked."

"So what's the criteria, pure, white gowns, flowers in the hair virgin types?"

Here he laughed out loud, "Hell no! How the fuck would I have got this gig then? Jashin-sama likes interesting folks, when we live as long as we do he's gotta like us to put up with us."

Sakura couldn't help but laugh along, Hidan's jovial manner and rich laugh were just too contagious. They continued chatting for a while, with Sakura mostly listening to the fascinating stories that Hidan told. For someone who came across as totally crazy, well he was totally crazy but still, he had his finger directly on the pulse point of a lot of things. She was totally absorbed in his tales of how Orochimaru's many attempts to try it on with Itachi when the others started filtering in. She sensed their little discussion was over as he became the loud, strutting man she was so used to once again. She smiled shyly at Deidara when the blonde appeared, already ready with immaculate hair as always. He grinned in return before involving himself in the mad rush for the toaster.

Stirring her second cup of coffee and listening to the banter flowing around her she felt scarily like she could get used to this, to this place, to these people. It was a sobering thought and she forced herself to picture how good she had things back home. Naruto's mega-watt grin, Sai's cutting put downs, Kakashi's terrible excuses, Tsunade's bad habits, Ino-pig's potential weight-gain. She would go home, eventually, but looking around at her new comrades she made a decision to enjoy the time she had with them. Barring a magical reconciliation between all ninja nations it was unlikely she would have regular contact with them again. Ever again, if her overprotective friends back home had a say, and that was more depressing than she cared to contemplate.

Pushing all that away she enjoyed the feeling of being pressed up between the artist and the priest and involved herself in the ritual pre-mission mocking of Madara. Enjoy the present, worry about the future some other time.

XXXXX

R/R


	11. Chapter 11

While I don't own Naruto, this chapter inches very lamely towards a plot. There is one, I promise. I just can't seem to get enough of these filler chapters. This chapter isn't great but it's like a bridging, developemental one. Go easy on it. Thanks again for all the reviews, it really makes my day! Please get in touch to say what you like, what you don't and what you think should happen. Constructive criticism is always welcome. Hope you enjoy!

P.S. Empressofevilbunnies – you seem to have your PM switched off so I can't get in touch with you.

XXXXX

Sakura didn't think she'd ever been so happy to find a small, comfortable inn on the edge of a target area before. It was no wonder that no one ever caught up to the Akatsuki when they didn't want to be found. They'd covered in a few hours a distance that would have taken Konoha ninjas, or any normal ninja for that matter, at least two days. They hadn't even had a break for God's sake! She wasn't entirely sure how she'd managed not to either fall behind or die from exhaustion. The freaks surrounding her had barely broken a sweat whereas she just knew she was dripping and panting like a water buffalo. It was only her stupid pride that was keeping her upright and not begging Kisame to carry her. She was sure he would, he was nice like that.

They'd paused on the edge of the tree line while Itachi investigated the area and Sakura had never been so glad that she didn't have to move. Kisame was giving her a slightly worried look which she waved off, praying that the little weasel would deem the place safe to stay. If he came back and told them they would have to move on she was going to murder him. She wasn't exactly well known for her patience at the best of times and right now her temper was on a hair trigger. Somehow both Deidara and Hidan seemed to sense this and were keeping their hands and any comments to themselves. She tensed right up as Itachi reappeared in front of them, having the self-preservation instincts not to smirk at her bedraggled state.

"It is acceptable." He swept away and the others began to troop after him.

Her fists relaxed, he would live for today.

The inn turned out to be run by a sweet, elderly couple who looked understandably taken aback to find five threatening men and one sweaty mess of a girl standing in their foyer. While Kisame was easily the politest and most well-spoken of the Akatsuki he decided they looked terrified enough without seeing him up close and so pushed Itachi forward.

Sakura was pretty sure she'd fallen asleep on her feet when Itachi came away from the desk with the keys for three rooms. Assuming she'd be sharing with Deidara or Hidan, whichever came up tops in the little cockfight they were sure to have, she was quite surprised to find herself in with the Uchiha instead. He looked as if this was nothing out of the ordinary so she just shrugged, dumped her bag and fell face down on the bed. Enjoying the feeling of her legs no longer screaming in protest at the abuse she was doling out, she propped her head up on her hand to watch her room-mate.

He was clearly cut from ANBU cloth; the only one who packed a bag as neatly as that was the anally retentive Sai. Every weapon that he pulled out was polished to an unbelievably high shine and every scroll had its edges perfectly aligned. The one thing that immediately struck her was how impersonal everything he owned was. Everything was incredibly uniform, in plain colours with the only decoration being the Uchiha fan embossed onto them. He'd probably have a heart-attack if he took a look at her pack. Her scrolls, bottles and weapons had been shoved in where they'd fit rather than in any sort of order. Aside from her usual uniform her clothes were a mishmash of whatever had been clean when she'd left on her mission and a few shirts she'd stolen off the men in her life. He'd be actually offended by the vibrant orange with yellow swirls monstrosity she kept to remind her of its garrulous owner.

He seemed to sense her scrutiny, turning to her and raising an eyebrow slightly. Sakura rolled her eyes and allowed her head to thump onto the mattress. She could only read Uchiha facial expressions after years of practice, and even then it was on the infinitely more open younger brother. How the hell anyone else managed to figure out what Itachi wanted, meant or thought was a mystery. This bed was awfully comfy; she could just close her eyes for a couple of minutes. It didn't matter that one of most scary men on the planet was five feet away and looking at her strangely. After all, who could take the man seriously now, knowing what she knew? There were a good few kunoichis back home who fantasised over his dark, brooding and sexy image. Weren't they in for a serious disappointment when this socially malformed idiot turned up?

Itachi looked rather disconcerted that Sakura had drifted off to sleep after smirking to herself. He wasn't used to sharing a room with a girl but evidently Kisame had felt it was for the best. Kisame was pretty much the only one who Kakuzu wouldn't feel compelled to poison after half an hour of being in the same room so they were together to avoid any unnecessary trouble. Hidan and Deidara got along well anyway and if one of them had gotten to be with Sakura the other would have sulked so that was the perfect solution. That just left him to keep an eye on her. The others didn't seem concerned that she was still a prisoner and could choose to try and escape at any time. He couldn't figure out why this was. Still, maybe now would be a good chance to discuss with her the possibility of fixing his vision, or at least alleviating the encroaching blindness a little. It was getting beyond embarrassing to have to check with Kisame before he left his rooms that he wasn't wearing anything purple.

Still he didn't think waking her up was a particularly good idea. She wasn't used to the power and skill of the rest of them and had been hard pressed to keep up. He would go secure the area with Kisame and let one of the others get her for dinner; it would be rather satisfying to see that super-strength used on one of the more moronic of his fellows. Deidara sprung instantly to mind. Squinting at the weapons on the bed he picked what he hoped were the sharpest. The only way to be totally sure of that now was to go over them all every night. He'd already had to replace several sets of kunai after practically wearing them down to a seriously ineffective nubbin. She barely even reacted as she left the room. How strange, to feel that safe around anyone, never mind people who had tried to kill her on previous occasions. He nodded to the shark who had just exited his own room; maybe Kisame would have the answers to this puzzle.

XXXXX

A couple of hours later it was Deidara that had drawn the short straw and was currently standing just inside the door debating the best way to go about disturbing her. She was still lying face down with her face shoved into the pillow, a little puddle of drool soaking into the fabric. Wandering closer, ready to leap back at the slightest hint of a chakra surge, he took the opportunity to have a good look. Aware that the others were watching from outside the blast radius he resisted the suicidal urge to tuck her hair behind her ear. Instead he reached out a hand and laid it on her shoulder and, leaning his delicate facial structures away, gave her a shake.

It was all a bit anti-climatic really as she merely shook awake and wiped her mouth with no violence directed towards the cause of the disturbance. It took of all Deidara's iron masculinity not to wilt with relief and instead make it look to everyone that he was never worried. Sakura could smell the food that was piled up in the next room so managed not to be really cross that they had dared interrupt her life-giving sleep. That little power nap had been just what she needed and she was feeling much less like she was going to throttle someone. Stretching her back when she stood up she ignored the grimaces coming from the gathered men as her spine popped all the way up. Honestly, she thought as she followed them next door, they were all killers and psychos; they should be able to handle it.

The little elderly couple had certainly outdone themselves with the meal. There was enough food split over the two beds in Deidara and Hidan's room to feed around twenty people. Clearly they had taken one look at Kisame and Kakuzu and thought that if they didn't put on a good enough spread the two of them would start eating the beds or something. She shoved the pillows on what she assumed was Hidan's bed, due to the symbol etched in the wall over the bed-head, up and settled herself near the shrimp tempura. Hidan slid onto the floor next to her knees, snagging the best looking bowl out from under Itachi's hand. Kisame paused to ensure that everyone was getting fed and nothing was going to set off an argument before laying down a map of the village.

"Right folks, this is where we are here," Kisame poked his large finger down on a section surrounded by trees and cut off from the main village by a river and a reasonable amount of distance.

"We're on the civvie side, which reaches to about here," he drew a line around the small section of the village considered exclusively civilian. They didn't have divisions like that in Konoha but it was definitely the norm in the more warlike villages, Mist and Stone especially.

"These guys are worse than Mist for treating civilians like shit, I know, I know, fucking unbelievable, so I figure we can henge-up and hang around in this section to get any details."

Deidara leaned over to spear a perfectly cooked piece of duck out of Itachi's bowl, "But they won't know shit, yeah? Back in Stone they used to spread misinformation so the civvies didn't know what the fuck."

Sakura wrinkled her nose at this; civilians were always treated with respect if not exactly told what went on in the darker parts of the village. Hidan tipped his face up to give her a disbelieving look, "Konoha really is puppies and fucking rainbows isn't it? What happened to him then?"

Itachi glared as Hidan pointed to him. Sakura felt a little bad for him; especially as his limited vision hadn't alerted him to the fact Kakuzu was drinking his drink. "Actually, Itachi is pretty much the reason Konoha treats their people better than anywhere else."

Even the man himself looked a little taken aback at this so she elaborated, waving her chopsticks to emphasise her points. "Everyone figured that he'd just snapped, gone balls-to-the-wall crazy, 'cos of being a genius and forced to do things too young. I mean hell, look at Kakashi, he was pretty much brought up the same and can you tell me he's all there? Can you fuck."

She paused to sweep more noodles into her mouth, giving the men a second to chew over this theory. Itachi looked quite pleased that she'd called him a genius; it had been a long time since any of these idiots had afforded him the respect he deserved. Kisame was watching this with interest, his scheming face hidden by the bowl he was draining the broth from.

Rather enjoying her captive audience, Sakura continued, "So, to stop anything like that happening again, even super-geniuses aren't allowed to become genin 'til they're at least twelve."

Kakuzu rolled his eyes, "Yes, because twelve year olds are such fucking bastions of maturity."

Sakura laughed aloud, more than most she knew the feeling of looking back at your younger self and wanting to give them a good slapping. "Come on, you guys are all like Itachi right? When did you become genin?"

The men looked between each other; they were such men they had never actually talked to each other about things like that. Hidan, always the most expressive and least concerned with what other people thought of him, creased his brow – becoming a genin was a hell of a long time ago for him. "I think I was about eight or so. My jounin supervisor was a real mean son of a bitch; fucker got himself killed in a brothel." Here he paused, a wistful smile twisting his lips, "Hell of a way to go. Not everyone gets that lucky you know."

Sakura rolled her eyes and smirked, reaching down to flick his ear and distract him from his lascivious memories.

Deidara smirked at his comrade, but without any malice behind it, "I was seven, yeah. First ever mission was supposed to be this escort, like three miles, easiest shit in the world yeah? Turned into this massive clusterfuck 'cos some guy put up a huge reward for offing our client. So there's us three little stone-lets, one ancient ass jounin and this fat sack of shit hiding in his carriage against about thirty missing-nins." He grinned a little manically to himself, his fingers flexing slightly as he formed imaginary explosives.

The others shared amused looks over his head, figuring he would continue once he'd stopped getting a stiffy over his art. "Well, wasn't much left of the fuckers after that, yeah? Not much of our client either though, kinda got me in deep shit."

After the laughter died down all eyes turned to Kakuzu who was sitting next in their little sharing circle. He was obviously in a good mood because of instead of grousing he instead chose to educate these children about what being a ninja had been like in the good ol' days. "Ninjas were only just starting to get organised when I first started –"

"Been too busy dealing with the fucking dinosaurs..."

Kakuzu stabbed a kunai into the floor where the Jashinist's leg had been a millisecond earlier, ignoring the snickering from the others and continuing with his tale. "So you didn't get a jounin mentor. You were just signed into the ranks and sent on missions that they thought you could handle with groups of your peers."

Sakura leaned forward on her crossed legs, she'd always been a history lover and the only other person who'd been alive then was Madara. Somehow she got the feeling he wouldn't be all sharing and caring like his less crazy minions. "Did that work?"

The bounty hunter gave her a look that made her feel particularly stupid. "Why the hell do you think they introduced the idea? A few too many dead genins and the experienced ninja population getting seriously geriatric."

Kisame looked a little nervous that it was clearly now his turn after Hidan had stopped calling Kakuzu a hypocrite for daring to call anyone else a geriatric. Itachi, knowing his partner of many years extremely well, accidently directed the others' attention to this fact by looking vaguely concerned.

"What's up fishy? This the part where you tell us you weren't allowed out the academy 'til you were fifteen or some shit?"

Kisame grinned to himself while he fidgeted with the bedcovers, accidently snagging some of Deidara's hair and causing the artist to yelp and glare at him. "Actually I was four."

"Four?"

"No fucking way, yeah!"

Hidan folded his arms, "I call bullshit. Fuck's sake fishy, we all think you can do the business, you don't have to fucking make shit up."

Kisame looked offended, but was clearly used to this sort of reaction to this little tidbit of information. "I shit you not; I was big for my age."

"Shit, fishy, you're big for any age."

"You can't send a four year old out in the field, I mean for fuck's sake! Even the Uchiha's weren't that fucked up!" Sakura was horrified, hugely impressed, but horrified none the less.

Kisame looked quite touched by her concern; it was just around thirty years too late. "Mist is tough missy, always has been. Still is, as far as I know. If you didn't get good quick you were fucked. Just so happens that I got very good, very quickly." His cocky grin didn't have the charm of Hidan's or the wildness of Deidara's but it was very clear to Sakura that Kisame had found his way around a woman or two. Despite being blue.

Itachi was looking bored. This tended to happen whenever the focus of long conversations drifted away from the mission in hand. Somehow sensing the natural lull in conversation as they pondered the idea of a four-year-old Kisame (Sakura being unable to conjure up anything other than the cutest little blue baby shark in the world) he brought their attention back to the matter of sneaking into the civilian quarter.

Hidan and Deidara shared a significant look, both thoroughly sick of the Uchiha and his crotchety ways. Kakuzu was rather glad, not only was he getting tired – his old bones weren't what they used to be – but he'd prefer to iron out any potential slip ups now, before the reputation of the Akatsuki was reduced any further. Sakura was just interested in how these people, with so many defining characteristics, managed to disguise themselves.

Deidara simply reached up, tugged off his scope, hitai-ate and the tie holding up his customary pony-tail. As he'd already shucked the cloak, revealing his black t-shirt underneath, Sakura was amazed to see the transformation from feared bomber to rock star youth. Leaning over she pushed the heavy fringe away from the left side of his face, ignoring the way he jerked back at the contact. She was rather disappointed to see that his face was completely normal under the scope, none of the scarring or other weird theories Konoha nins had come up with. He was looking at her funny, but she just laughed, explaining how most people back home thought he was like the Phantom of the Opera.

Hidan ruffled his hair slightly and spread his arms as if to say he was done, making Sakura giggle. Even if the priest wasn't as abnormal in appearance as the others he was a master showman and all eyes were drawn to his performances. He was going to have to try a bit harder than that. He hadn't even taken off his damn pendant.

Itachi looked rather unimpressed by the antics of his two comrades. "That will not be enough, civilians have access to the bingo book and all of us," he even nodded to Sakura, making her feel rather proud of herself, "are too well known. We will need henge."

While Deidara huffed, not wanting to change anything about his lovingly crafted self-image, the others concentrated on what they thought would help them avoid detection.

Kisame held up two fingers and when the puff of white smoke cleared there was a perfectly ordinary and forgettable middle-aged and slightly overweight business man. From the slight balding on top to the plain glasses and slightly too tight white shirt with a tasteless tie, he looked every inch a harried under-achiever. Sakura thought she was going to die laughing. Especially when he grinned and from between the chubby cheeks emerged his two rows of razor teeth.

Itachi took a far less drastic approach, merely erasing the lines under his eyes and shortening his hair to a shaggy pile on his head. It was strange to see how much the hair made the man. Without his sweeping bangs and long ponytail he just looked like a normal guy. Not the man swooned over in secrecy by many women of the ninja world. He looked scarily like Sai actually, thought Sakura, desperately trying not to think about their obvious parallels.

Kakuzu simply reverted back to what he looked like originally, many, many moons ago when he was a young man. Although his basic facial structure stayed the same his skin was paler, smoother and less like an old newspaper. While obviously the main change was that the threads holding his body together were no longer evident it was the eyes that differentiated the terrifying, semi-immortal bounty hunter from a good looking although otherwise unremarkable man in his mid-twenties. They were just a normal green surrounded by actual whites rather than the angry looking pink. Sakura grinned and winked at him, doing her best not to be intimidated by the very unimpressed glare he sent her way. Stupid females.

Sakura took advantage of the fact that her only defining features were her pink hair and green eyes. A quick few hand-seals and a non-descript brunette with brown eyes, although still with a rather large forehead was sitting on the bed. Deidara, with all his artistic vision and tastes, looked actually offended. Hidan didn't seem to be bothered, clicking his fingers at her with a lazy wink. Checking herself in the mirror on the opposite wall to the beds she tugged her headband off. Running her fingers through her now strangely coloured hair she edited the jutsu slightly to make her locks more flowing and luscious. Using Deidara's hair as a template, naturally.

Hidan chose to make his hair black and changed his arresting violet eyes to a more normal dark brown/black. Again he spread his arms, looking at Itachi sarcastically as if asking if he'd got it right this time. Itachi merely gazed levelly at him, the organisation would fall apart without his organisational skills and attention to detail. Hidan shook his head in despair over the death of fun in one so young.

Everyone then turned to Deidara who was pouting like a child at the idea of having to conceal who he was. He took time and bloody effort over this fantastic hair only for it not to be appreciated. Seeing he wasn't going to get out of it, judging by Kisame's raised eyebrow, he scowled and muttered the jutsu under his breath. Like Itachi his long hair was one of his main calling cards, and one of the few that wouldn't explode, so he made it short – although in a much more fashionable style than Itachi's. Honestly, that mess on his head hadn't been in fashion for twenty years. He even swapped his blue eyes for a dark green. He raised his eyebrows as if to ask if everyone was happy but they just kept staring at him, smiling slightly in amusement. Glowering, there was another puff of smoke and he held up his hands to show smooth palms with no hint of the mouths underneath.

Sakura looked around the group of murderers she could now call friends – and started laughing again. This was one fucked up situation and she would kill to have a camera right about now. Focussing her mind's eye to record every minute detail of this weird mirror-verse of the Akatsuki she tried to get her giggles under control.

Glaring, Deidara was the first to break the henge, muttering about how they were all dicks and how he was so under-appreciated. The others released them too, all feeling slightly relieved to be back in their own skins. Kisame especially, the poor bastard really had to go the whole hog to look normal. Itachi looked marginally more relaxed now they were slightly more prepared and advised them of the time they would be leaving the inn in the morning. It had all been fun and games, but now the mission was on. Sakura grinned, she couldn't wait.

XXXXX


	12. Chapter 12

The plot arrives fashionably late, much like this update. I'm sorry it's taken so long, but give me a break; I'm getting my phd here! This chapter is a bit short and crap but I had some inspiration so I just ran with it. I have so many deadlines it's not even funny so I don't know when the next chapter will be but hopefully soon. Enjoy and review!

XXXXX

Kakuzu was going to murder Hidan. Pausing for a second, he remembered these ridiculous guises were Itachi's idea. He would murder both of them. Hidan would have done something to deserve it by the time he got around to it.

He'd not been a young man for a long time. What's more, he was perfectly happy with this state of affairs. He was even happier with his unsettling appearance that prevented him from getting himself into predicaments like his current one. The elderly woman currently latched onto his arm and twittering inanely about how lovely her grand-daughter was, and how he looked like he needed a good woman in his life, suddenly stopped mid-stride. She gestured to a young couple chatting on the street ahead of them and beamed up at him. He tamped down the urge to sling her through the window of the shop they were next to and instead managed a look of faint puzzlement.

"Warms the heart to see young love doesn't it my boy? You and my little Hana could be like that, you know."

Kakuzu squinted and thought it would be very difficult for this Hana girl to be anything like the henge-d Sakura. He wasn't fond of the girl, but he had the sense to know she was one of a kind. And he certainly didn't want to be like Deidara, that boy was a world-class idiot. Being a well-trained, century old shinobi he could read body-language with incredible ease. Deidara was around three seconds away from the mother of all temper tantrums and while Sakura appeared to be giggling at something he was saying it was quite obvious the grip she had on his hand was practically mulching the bones.

He couldn't sense any of the others in the immediate vicinity (Hidan had bailed as soon as he'd seen the batty bitch appear, the traitor) so it was going to be up to him to stop the moron blowing their cover. Gently disentangling the grandma he muttered some excuse about knowing them and swiftly strode away. As he approached Sakura looked at him with something akin to relief, something he sure as hell wasn't used to.

"What the hell is going on?" His lowered his voice from the shouting he really wanted to indulge in to a deep bass murmur.

Deidara, looking even more poncy than usual with the ridiculous floppy haircut he was sporting, pouted even further. Kakuzu watched Sakura draw in a deep breath, all the while keeping a pleasant look on her face to avoid drawing any suspicion. Clearly he was nipping something in the bud here and tried to look at the positives as Konan was always lecturing him about.

"Those young men over by that building site questioned his sexuality." Sakura kept her grip on Deidara's arm in case he lost it and went back over there.

Kakuzu rolled his eyes, "I really don't fucking care. Do not fuck this mission up."

Deidara scowled darkly and muttered some unintelligible but probably filthy things under his breath.

"Who's the old lady?" Sakura peered over his shoulder at the tiny old woman who was smiling at them in a fond fashion.

"Addled old bitch."

"Kakuzu!" Sakura hissed under her breath. Deidara snickered; immensely glad to see he wasn't the only one having a hard time in this shit-hole.

The bounty-hunter didn't reply, just gave her a hard look. He'd been traipsing around this godforsaken dump all damn day and hadn't found shit. He just prayed that the others had come up with something or he was going to tell Pein to tell Madara to shove his missions up his ass. Making sure to avoid any eye-contact with his new match-maker he gestured that they should just head back to the inn before the day got any worse. Sakura agreed, dragging Deidara along behind her and doing her best to ignore the cat-calls coming from the workies. It was only slightly depressing that none of them were directed at her.

XXXXX

Hidan was already in their rooms when they returned. Propped up on one of the beds and reading a seriously pornographic magazine he looked the picture of relaxation. Kakuzu forced himself to breathe deeply and count to ten; their budget couldn't possibly cover a whole new wing for an inn this nice.

As the three of them shuffled in he grinned at them over the top of his read, "Yo! How'd it all go in shitsville?"

Deidara practically glared a hole in the priest's forehead while Kakuzu was forced to start his numbers over.

"We didn't hear or see anything. I guess you were right Deidara, they mustn't tell their civvies shit." Sakura flopped onto the other bed and covered her eyes.

Hidan folded up the magazine reverently before shoving it under his pillow, "Total bust?"

"Oh I don't know, Deidara made some new friends," Kakuzu's voice held a serious undercurrent of bitter amusement.

"Fuck you Kakuzu. At least that old bitch was about your age, yeah?" he somehow managed to scowl harder and with a pop let the henge go.

It was an unusual scene of the artist and bounty-hunter at each other's throats while Hidan and Sakura attempted to escape the blast-radius that Kisame and Itachi blundered straight into.

"What the fuck's going on here?" Kisame barked, looking thoroughly unimpressed as Sakura slid behind him to use him as a meat shield.

The heads of the fighting pair snapped towards him, Deidara with an exploding spider with only three legs, and Kakuzu with his threads wrapped around the blonde's wrists. Having retreated to the relatively safe area of the window Hidan looked quite excited by the turn of events.

"This bastard -!" They both started before glaring at each other even harder. Kisame folded his arms and raised an eyebrow, suddenly looking every inch of his seven feet. With one final burning stare of hatred the pair separated to opposite sides of the room and Kisame tugged Sakura out from behind him. Itachi hadn't moved from staring blankly into the room from the doorway.

"Have you ladies quite finished? What have you found out?"

Sakura sat cross-legged on the floor and shrugged, "Absolutely fuckin' zip. I could tell you all about the affair the site foreman's wife is having though."

Deidara perked up a little at this news, he so enjoyed revenge, "Yeah?"

Sakura nodded sagely, while Itachi looked seriously unimpressed, "Yup, totally at it with the bald worky, you know, the one who looks like a goddamn shaved ape."

"Fuck's sake, really? That guy couldn't figure out how to open his lunchbox, yeah. I mean, literally!"

A small line appeared on Itachi's forehead so Kisame thought it better to direct the conversation back to the mission in hand. Especially as it looked like Hidan was about to start asking for details.

"You all suck mighty hard, you know that? But thankfully, I am here to save your asses from a beat-down." Kisame smirked smugly at them all, Itachi looked a little wounded. "Itachi helped a little I suppose."

Fetching the map from his pack he laid it out across the floor and gestured for them all to crowd around to see. It had been a long day, and none of the men wanted to get that close to each other so the circle was not as tight as Kisame would have liked. Grumbling under his breath about idiots he pointed to an area outside of the village, about the same distance outside the ninja side as the inn was from the civilian.

"When we were in the bar –"

"You went to the bar?" Hidan looked as offended as he sounded. Not offended that they weren't taking the mission seriously, but more that he hadn't been invited.

"It is the optimal place to overhear things that without the addition of alcohol would not be said."

Everyone took a good minute to give Itachi a measured look. Sakura opened her mouth but Kisame waved her off, "He gets more anal when he's tired, just ignore it."

Sakura shook her head, earning herself pleased smirks from Deidara and Hidan. Kakuzu seemed to have calmed himself down enough to re-direct his annoyance to Itachi for being such a tool. He was convinced that if the idiot didn't stop repressing so hard he was going to have a stroke.

Tapping his finger on the map in an exasperated fashion, Kisame continued, "So, word is there's a cave somewhere round here that's had a load of weird shit like flashing lights and screaming coming out of it. I don't know how you do evil science but that sounds pretty fucking promising."

The rest of them nodded at each other in approval, causing Kisame to look quite pleased with himself.

"So what's the plan, gills? We gonna bust in there and fuck their shit up?" Hidan was practically bouncing at the prospect of some unrestrained murder.

Sakura giggled while Kakuzu gave him a disparaging glare, how had he been saddled with such a flamboyant moron again? The only person less designed for this sort of stealth mission was the blonde idiot.

Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, Kisame seemed to give it some serious consideration before taking the mature angle, "We can't have fun all the time – "

He tactfully ignored Kakuzu's snort of derision and continued, "So we should probably stealth it out, Deidara make some of those sentry fuckers and when we know what we're dealing with we'll bust in there and fuck their shit up." He finished by slamming his fist into his palm with a thunderous slap and they all jumped into action.

Or rather they would have if anybody other than Deidara was actually going to be doing anything at this stage. Hidan clapped his friend on the back before throwing himself back on the bed and pulling out his magazine again. Deidara rolled his eyes at the priest and began sorting through his bags to find the one with his clay in.

"Try not to get seen, and don't get in any fucking fights, we'll have people all up in our shit if they see explosions ok? Just set –"

"The things down and get out of there, yeah. I'm not a moron."

Sakura was quite surprised to see Itachi's eyebrows raise in an approximation of what could maybe be called a joke but no one else seemed to see and she dismissed it as her mind playing tricks on her. Deidara nodded to the guys, smiled at her, and leapt out through the window, scope and clay-bags back in their rightful place.

Kisame sighed and picked up the inn's menu to order their dinner, "What is it with you guys interrupting me today?"

XXXXX

The next day saw the Akatsuki (and Sakura) perched in another copse of trees near to the entrance of the cave. Deidara's sentry models had reported to their creator that there was indeed a base contained within said cave although the total number of shinobi living there was quite small. They had also identified a rather convenient disused tunnel coming from the other side of the mountain that led to a concealed ridge within the cave, perfect for eavesdropping on the men below. They had spent the morning observing any comings and goings from the main entrance but this had mainly consisted of mundane food deliveries and such and the more energetic members of the group were starting to get a little restless.

"There's a real fucking lack of busting in going on, seriously."

"Shut up, idiot."

In order to avoid a scuffle in the trees Kisame lowered his binoculars and packed them away, "He's almost, kinda, right. We're getting nothing here so we should move around to that tunnel. All the interesting shit will be inside."

As they all dropped silently from the trees and moved like shadows over and around the mountainside to the other tunnel, Sakura took a minute to marvel at the group. How such dysfunctional men managed was totally beyond her. What were they going to do if their surrogate mother, conjuring up a terrifying mental image when applied to Kisame, copped it was anyone's guess. The man-shark/shark-man always seemed to know exactly when to step in to stop any stupid fights. Really strange for a man whose whole reputation was based on how much he liked getting into fights and mauling anyone stupid enough to fuck with him.

It soon became apparent why the tunnel was in disuse as there was a massive slab of rock, obviously having broken off somewhere higher on the mountain, almost completely sealing the entrance. Deidara's face lit up like Kakashi's at the bookstore on seeing this but his talents were rejected for being 'too goddamn noisy' and 'what are you, an idiot?' so it was left to Sakura to deal with the problem. Finding that the rock was thin enough at one side to get an arm behind she pumped her muscles full of chakra and pulled slowly, the rock swinging open like a door despite grinding up the earth underneath it. When it was moved enough for them to get in she dusted off her hands and looked at Kisame expectantly. He just nodded and continued inside with Sakura and Kakuzu following behind.

Outside Hidan looked at her handiwork and whistled, "Damn."

Deidara nodded, still a little awe-struck by that kind of sheer power. Even Itachi looked vaguely impressed, although it was hard to tell. As the Uchiha and the priest passed him to follow the others, Deidara couldn't help pouting a little, "I could've moved it too. Bang!" followed by a little maniacal cackle to himself.

Hidan who had turned back to check the artist was coming rolled his eyes, "He's doing it again," he announced.

"Doing what?" Sakura asked, totally confused.

"Being mental."

"We haven't got time, just let him get the fuck on with it. If he blows anything up I'll scrag him myself."

Soon they began to hear voices up ahead, along with the crackle of electricity and the occasional scream. Dropping into low crouches and keeping to the tunnel walls they inched forward, soon seeing the ridge that would hide them from the open space down below. The air smelt overpoweringly, and a little worryingly, of smoke, acid and burnt flesh. Despite being deep in the mountain the cave was boiling hot and even Itachi was looking a little uncomfortable in his thick cloak. She'd asked why the hell they were wearing them at all when this was still technically supposed to be a stealth mission. She'd been told that if anyone started anything they needed to know it was the Akatsuki providing their beat-down. She'd said this was stupid as everyone knew what organisation the huge blue guy and the second-last Uchiha belonged to. Kisame had shrugged and told her to take it up with Pein, he enforced the uniform rules.

Reaching the ridge they pressed themselves against the rock and risked peeking over. Through the clouds of steam they could see several tables with leather straps at where the neck, wrists and ankles would be. There was also some machinery and vats of bubbling liquid. It looked like a movie set. There didn't seem to be anything happening at the immediate moment but there were several people chatting away, sounding like they were on their lunch-break.

Kisame motioned for quiet while they listened but for a good long while the talk was achingly banal. Sakura in particular was most un-interested in the various women of the village that the loudest one wanted to 'pork' to use the man's terminology. However just as they were shifting about and thinking about maybe making a move, if just to spare themselves anymore discussion about haemorrhoids, the conversation took a very interesting turn.

Someone new joined the group and began excitedly chattering about how they would have new subjects soon. These would have to be transformed as soon as possible as there were plans afoot. Plans involving Konoha. Sakura practically wiggled herself over the edge to hear what they were going to say.

" – he's been in talks with them all week. Supposedly he's not got enough of those ANBU guys to do the job. So long as the Raikage gets some of the spoils he's gonna let him use some of the soldiers."

"Konoha's pretty damn powerful ... "

"Yeah but Danzou's been on the inside for years, he knows what's what. He'll be Hokage within the year!"

"THAT SON OF A BIT –" Sakura's roar of outrage was cut off by Deidara tackling her and slamming a hand over her mouth.

The talk below had stopped as the men tried to identify the source of the noise. Shouting at each other they began fanning out below but none thought to look up. Sakura was shaking with rage and even the Akatsuki looked surprised. They had been expecting something stupid, as all of Lightning's plans were, not something like this. In the confusion they all missed the way Itachi's mouth pinched into a thin line.

Hidan pulled the cover off his scythe, an odd light burning in his eyes at seeing Sakura so upset. "We waste them yeah?"

Kisame nodded, a feral smile spreading over his face. Kakuzu, not particularly interested in Sakura's emotional state, just looked as though this was business as usual. Nodding at each other the four men leapt silently over the ridge and started enjoying some serious carnage down below. Deidara tentatively uncovered Sakura's mouth. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her leather gloves, sliding them on with a determined look that made Deidara a little uneasy.

"Why can I taste clay?"

"Uhh," Deidara smiled sheepishly and held up a palm that grinned at her.

"That's pretty damn gross."

Seeing this as a perfect opportunity for an exit he grinned at her too and jumped right into the fray.

Realising she wasn't alone on the ridge she turned to Itachi. He was looking out of sorts, almost angry, as much as his face could express it. He seemed to realise he was under scrutiny as his face smoothed out and he gestured for her to join the others. Giving him one last suspicious look she did so. She could worry about him when she'd crushed a few heads.

Disappointingly the level of ninja within the camp wasn't very high. Several of them had simply tried to run when faced with most of the Akatsuki and one raging woman with pink hair. They hadn't got very far when they were caught up to. The ones who had stayed to fight soon found themselves on the end of a sword, scythe, explosive animal, or chakra-powered fists. Sakura had been particularly brutal, out of character for her but these people were threatening her home – of course she wasn't going to play nice. Hidan found it intensely arousing. Deidara found it a little scary.

When they were certain anything that wasn't them in the complex had been obliterated, they turned their attention to the weird machines. Hidan pulled a few levers and pushed a few buttons but nothing seemed to happen except he almost managed to electrocute Kakuzu.

"Should we wreck them?"

"Fuck yeah, they're gonna use them to make soldiers to help that complete bastard take over Konoha!"

"I think that might be in Pein's long term plans you know ..."

"Fuck Pein, is he doing it within the year?"

"No –"

"Then fuck these things up."

Sakura was clearly in no mood to talk about it and as Itachi located some schematics for them Kisame couldn't really see the harm in blowing the place up. Deidara looked like all his Christmases had come at once.

"Try and keep it low-key? Don't blow up the whole fucking mountain, ok?" Kisame folded his arms as he watched the artist plant his art around the place. The others were already in the process of retreating to a safe distance.

Deidara glared, but acquiesced. "Never get to do anything yeah. Always fucking don't do ..." he trailed off into mumbling and Kisame saw this as a good time to get the hell out.

Back in their copse of trees they watched with a small measure of satisfaction (a great measure in Sakura's case) as fire shot out of the tunnel entrance and the ground shook under the force of Deidara's art.

Once the smoke had cleared they all looked at each other. Mission over, but what the hell did they do now?

XXXXX

R/R


	13. Chapter 13

Dum Dum Dum! Plot and lots of it, I know, I'm shocked as well. I'm sorry this is so late – although you can't see through the screen I'm grovelling, totally. I'm afraid we're starting to approach the end of this little road, as gutting as that is. Not for a wee while yet though. Thanks to all who review and keep at it, seriously, it makes me feel bad for not producing anything so I get on it.

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It was very early in the morning when a small slug poofed into existence next to the Hokage's bed. So early in fact that Tsunade merely rolled over when it appeared, muttering under her breath about retiring. Wilting slightly the tiny creature began the arduous task of crawling its way over the woman to deliver the message. Tsunade's eyes flew open and she barely stifled a shriek on feeling something cold and wet moving over her ear. Springing up she caught the slug as it went sailing through the air with as much consternation as it could manage on its little face. It took a good few heartbeats for Tsunade to realise the significance of the creature in her hand but when it sunk in she moved faster than she had ever done before.

XXXXX

Naruto was dead to the world when the ANBU guard came knocking at his window. Hinata, who he was curled around, squeaked in absolute mortification as the guard opened the window and slapped the blonde on the head.

"The Hokage has summoned us dickless, get dressed."

Naruto stretched and sat up, pulling the covers up and around Hinata when he realised there was another man in the room.

"Get the hell out of here Sai!" He paused, "What's going on?"

Sai rolled his eyes as he climbed back out the window, the effect unfortunately being lost behind his mask, "Hurry up."

Naruto groaned deeply, his face in Hinata's neck before slowly getting out of bed and pulling on yesterday's clothes. The Hokage wasn't going to care that this shirt had ramen all down the front of it, or a burnt patch from an exploding tag.

"Go back to sleep Hinata, hopefully the bag won't go on too long," he said, opening the window again to follow his team-mate.

XXXXX

Yamato knocked on Kakashi's front door. Unlike Naruto, Kakashi took security incredibly seriously and he had no interest in being either blown up by tags or mauled by dogs. He could hear said mutts moving about on the other side of the door but there didn't seem to be any rush to alert Kakashi. Resisting the urge to just slam his head into the wood he knocked again more forcefully trying to convey that he really didn't want to be standing out here in the cold all bloody day. After a few more seconds he thought about just leaving. Kakashi could be left out of the loop for all he cared. He'd been in a complete sulk since Sakura disappeared despite all evidence pointing at the men who kidnapped her being as fond of her as Team 7.

Just as he turned on his heel to leave the idiot to it the door opened and Kakashi, his face covered by a facecloth with strawberries on, appeared behind it. "What's up?"

Yamato stared for a second, "Is that one of Kurenai's?"

The eye not covered by ridiculous silver hair narrowed and Yamato decided it was probably in his best interests to deliver the message and get away. "The Hokage wants to see us, urgently, said it's so important that if you don't turn up as soon as possible she'll have you as a genin for the rest of your life."

Kakashi grunted and slammed the door closed. Yamato took this to mean the message had been received and headed in the direction of the tower. He passed the two morons in time to nip a burgeoning fight in the bud and just hoped the copy-ninja thought he was serious. Tsunade certainly had been.

XXXXX

Kakashi appeared much more appropriately attired at the window of the Hokage's office to find five people with folded arms glaring at him. There was also a slug looking at him but it seemed content with the piece of lettuce it was sitting on.

"You're late! I can't fathom why I'm surprised but this is important. Close the window. Once we're done with what I'm going to say here I'm officially demoting you." Tsunade turned back to the others and missed the way Kakashi rolled his eyes but did as he was told.

"Right baa-chan, you gonna tell us what's up with the slug? Oh did I tell you guys that Neji's scared of them?" Naruto roared with laughter, slapping his knee. Sure Hinata had told him not to tell anyone but who could keep that wonderful, wonderful piece of gossip on the down-low?

Waiting for Kakashi to settle Tsunade sat down and laced her fingers together, her voice dropping to just above a whisper, "This isn't one of mine."

Seeing as Shizune was also in the room that could mean only one thing. The people in front of her shared an excited glance as they processed this information. Naruto practically leapt out of his seat to get closer to the gastropod in question. Understandably it gave the blonde, shouting giant a wary look and burrowed further into its lettuce.

"Get away from it idiot, it doesn't want you touching it!" Tsunade snapped as Naruto withdrew his hand pouting.

"What's its message?"

"I've already heard, and I'm afraid you're not going to like what I have to tell you."

Naruto stiffened, going a selection of strange colours as his mind whirred through worst case scenarios.

"You can relax moron, Sakura is fine. She said and I quote 'as kidnappings go, this isn't too bad at all'."

Everyone looked the same mixture of relieved but seriously confused as Tsunade had when the slug had first started speaking in Sakura's voice. Her apprentice sounded angry and frustrated but not scared or hurt. She'd gone on to say that the whole situation was too weird to describe so it would have to wait until she got back but that there were more pressing matters to attend to.

"There's more to this, isn't there?" Yamato leaned back in his chair, giving his boss a calculating look.

"Isn't there always? Thing is, Sai will have to leave before I can tell you."

All eyes turned to the rather shocked artist. He wasn't sure what to do so he stood up and readied himself to leave.

"Now hold on! If it's about Sakura the bastard here has to know!" Naruto had latched onto Sai's arm to stop him going anywhere. Kakashi thought he looked rather touched by this gesture; they were obviously making progress with him.

"Didn't I just say she was fine? I can't say anything with Sai around. Trust me, boy, it's nothing personal and we'll need your help with this in the future but right now, out." Tsunade gestured to the door but her expression wasn't angry, in fact looking rather concerned about how the kid was taking the news. This was part of the reason Jiraiya had run screaming away from the offer of the job – he was too much of a softy for things like this.

Sai nodded, disentangled Naruto's grip, bowed and left the room. Once she was sure his chakra signature had retreated far enough way she gestured for them to all gather in closer around the slug. Looking around Tsunade bit her thumb and activated a jutsu that had the effect of sealing the room to unwanted listeners – the same one she used when she had her poker nights in the office. The surrounding ninjas looked at each other gravely, this was obviously serious business. The slug seemed to realise it was its time in the spotlight and straightened up its antennae. Tsunade nodded and it began to relay a message in Sakura's voice.

"Shishou, I'm fine, nothing awful is happening to me and you aren't to let those idiots worry – as kidnappings go, this isn't too bad at all. I can't explain all that's going down here because it's so goddamn weird it'll take forever. I've found something out though, Lightening are supplying super soldiers to Danzou for his planned coup. Don't ask how I know this, but trust me when I say you want to kill that little bastard right now! ROOT is still very much operational and 'Tachi says all its members have some sort of brainwashing seal that means they can't tell anyone else his plans but they have to report everything to him. This sounds so mean but don't let Sai hear any of this, even if he's out I think he could still be used. I don't know how close he is to a takeover or who else is in on it although you know most of the elders hate you and Naruto so you'll have to act fast. I'm going to work on convincing these weirdos to let me come home and figure this out but it's not looking good so far. Be careful, everyone, I love you all."

The communication ended and the slug relaxed its antennae looking quite pleased with itself. There was silence for a good few heartbeats as Tsunade watched the faces of those around her get darker.

Naruto suddenly shot out of his seat, slapping his fist into his other palm, "Ok, then we waste him!"

Yamato dragged him back into his seat but seemed rather approving of the idea. Shizune had her hands over her mouth, horrified that something like that was happening right under their noses. Kakashi had a faraway look in his eyes that meant he was plotting, probably planning the assassination that he was sure she wouldn't technically give permission for.

"I think I can say that 'we have a problem' is something of an understatement." If only she knew just how right she was.

Yamato huffed a laugh, evidently the only one really paying much attention to the Hokage. Naruto had changed from all action to a more thoughtful face. This was new, Tsunade reflected.

"Did ... did Sakura ... call Uchiha bastard senior 'Tachi?"

XXXXX

"So," Sakura dragged the word out as the six of them sat around during a much needed break on the way back to the base, "What's the chance Madara'll let me go back to Konoha?"

"Shouldn't think it'll be good to be honest," Kisame said brightly.

"You won't think he'll have got bored by now?"

"He's senile as all fucking get out, but I don't think he's that bad yet."

"Why do you want to leave anyway, yeah?" Sakura couldn't help smiling; Deidara was so damn cute when he was pouting.

"It's not that I want to leave you guys, although you could all fucking stand to bathe a bit more," she ducked a couple of pine cones and laughed, ignoring their jeers, "but I want to get back and put my boot right up Danzou's ass."

This answer seemed to satisfy them, especially Hidan and Deidara who were overjoyed by her outright stating she didn't want to get away from them. Kakuzu really didn't care and Itachi had been more wrapped up in his own head than ever since they'd left.

"I reckon when we tell Pein he'll be pretty pissed off. I think he's always had taking over Konoha as one of those long-term goals he's always banging on about. He doesn't like having his thunder stolen I tell ya."

"Do you think we can convince him to come along and beat the shit out of that bastard?" Sakura tapped her finger on her chin as she drifted into an idle fantasy of Pein dismembering Danzou.

Kisame stretched himself out, putting his arms behind his head to cushion it as he lay on the ground, "We?"

Sakura snorted inelegantly, "It'll look more legit if you guys ask."

Hidan was lying on his front with his legs kicked up in a scarily feminine fashion, "He'll ask why the hell we care. 'Cos I can't say I do, seriously."

"You could say 'Tachi's got a sudden case of homesickness and doesn't want Danzou messing with the place."

Everyone, except the man in question, gave her a look of derision.

"Pein wasn't kicked in the head by a fucking horse when he was a kid, seriously."

"That was just you." Kakuzu smirked over the clearing at his partner.

"Ahh eat me, you know I'm right, seriously, he wasn't born yesterday so you might have to come up with something a bit less shit."

Sakura flipped him off, ignoring the playful leer he sent her way in return, "You guys are all supposed to be geniuses, come up with something good!"

Kisame reached down to scratch an itch on his belly, mulling something over in his head, "If we play the inter-village trade and commerce angle we might get somewhere."

"Like how?" Sakura leaned over sensing an avenue opening up thanks to the huge man.

"Well, as well as stopping all war by becoming stupidly over-powered mega-vessels – not a bad plan, don't get me wrong I can't wait to be running around fucking up people's days like that – all Pein's interests lie in creating a stable economy – "

"It's pretty fucking dull, that's why he plays the merciless overlord card in public," Hidan interjected, wondering how he was going to explain suddenly becoming even more of a super-natural being to Jashin.

"Yeah, he's a total economics nerd, if he wasn't a crazy son of a bitch he'd be a guy with a briefcase, tie and a nine to fucking five, yeah?"

"So, as I was fucking saying, if we point out to him that Danzou is a tool of epic proportions when it comes to running anything bigger than his little ANBU club, Pein might have to step in." Kisame looked quite pleased with his reasoning, especially as Sakura was grinning while thinking it over.

"Are you sure he'll go for it?"

"Konoha is one of the largest and most wealthy hidden villages, its capital buoyancy keeps the markets afloat," Kakuzu found it much easier to be interested in these cretins when his areas of expertise appeared, "I've got a business degree too."

Sakura popped her lips; the rabbit hole went pretty damn far with these people, "Why?"

"So if he dies there's someone around who isn't going to fuck up the village," he was giving her that look that made her feel stupid again, she thought with irritation, he was a mad bounty-hunter it was totally worth questioning everything.

"Right, totally. So if Danzou screws up the Konoha economy what does that mean?"

"Depends on how he does it. But I know that idiot and the first thing he'll do is put the village back to how it was ages ago – a wartime economy – no luxuries, no outside missions –"

"So no fucking fun in other words?"

Kakuzu gave him a seriously frustrated look, it was like the moron couldn't focus on anything serious or he would have a stroke. "Shut up idiot. With Konoha withdrawn from the market there'll be fucking uproar, a crash and a depression. That will seriously piss Pein off after how hard he worked to repair Amegakure after the last war."

Sakura grabbed his arm and shook it with furious excitement, ignoring the horrified and angry look that spread over his face, "This is perfect! If his fucking pie charts are anything to go by he won't just let this all go down! You guys are the best!"

While the others grinned at each other, and Kakuzu prised the ridiculous woman off his arm, Itachi looked rather relieved. Of course unless you happened to be his mother it would have been impossible to tell, so no one remarked on it.

Kisame held out an arm to regain the group's attention after they drifted off onto a tangent of what Danzou's face was going to be like when Sakura rocked up with the Akatsuki in tow. "As brilliant as we are, we're still not all fucking puppies and rainbows and sunshine you know."

Sakura settled back from the animated conversation with the artist about blowing up the ROOT headquarters with the man inside, "Eh?"

"If Pein comes round to help out, there's every chance he'll stay."

"Like...?"

"Like he might fucking decide not to hand the village back over, seriously."

Sakura's expression darkened to the point where Deidara actually backed away in case she decided to work out any frustration on his delicate face. "He'd fucking better."

Rolling his eyes at Hidan's lovelorn sigh, Kisame patted her on the back remembering not to put too much force into it. One time he'd nearly killed Deidara when the blond had been choking on a piece of fish. "He likes you, he really does, he wouldn't put up with half of the shit that's gone down recently if he didn't, but he doesn't like you enough not to take over Konoha when it's handed to him. I mean, what kind of businessman would he be?"

If there was one thing Kakuzu liked about the girl, there wasn't a lot but he was really working on those positivity exercises, was that she could be reasonable when the occasion called for it. Rather than screeching at them, she cracked her knuckles aggressively while thinking over the completely solid point Kisame had made. Pein was prepared to put up with a certain amount of back-talk, cretinous behaviour and exorbitant expenses when they were concerned but riding in to save the day was a bit much. Besides, the PR department worked so hard, it wouldn't be fair to let people like Deidara and Hidan ruin all their hard work by being themselves in front of their enemies.

"Alright ... so we don't tell him. He took that stupid locater bracelet off when I came out with you guys so I can just slip away. I'd really appreciate it if you came to help me though." She gave them all a beseeching look that immediately won over the artist and priest.

"Sounds fun but saying as he's not a dumbass he might notice we've all disappeared." Kisame rubbed Samehada thoughtfully; the sword hadn't gotten a real work out in ages.

"Well if I get away then you can say you're coming to catch me again."

"Might work, so long as Madara doesn't find out."

Itachi gave this notion a rather scathing look but once again no one was paying him any attention.

While the others debated where Sakura should make a break for it - far enough away that Pein wouldn't bother coming along but close enough that it didn't look like a plan – a very unimpressed expression was spreading over the face of the bounty-hunter.

"You're telling me that Pein just took off your locater bracelet?"

"Just before we left, frankly he looked kinda relieved. It was just as well too, I couldn't have sent that slug earlier if I was still wearing it."

Hidan, out of respect for Sakura's summons, tried his best to keep the revolted look off his face, "How does that even work, seriously? It's a fucking slug, it can't make noise."

Sakura shrugged, "I dunno, ask Shishou when we get to Konoha. All summons can do messages and the biggest ones can talk themselves."

"Yeah Orochimaru was weirdly fond of that fuck-off big snake."

"Compensation, yeah." Deidara grinned as Sakura giggled and the others smirked.

"It had a great attitude though, seriously! Was all like 'fuck you, you can stop me chilling with my buddies and make me appear but if I don't get to eat someone I'll fuck you up'. If I had a summons, that's the sort of bad motherfucker I'd want."

Kisame shuddered as he remembered Orochimaru's thankfully short tenure with the Akatsuki, "He used to let those little fuckers into your room to see what you were doing – bet he was hoping to jack off about it."

"Oh for fuck's sake Kisame, that's gross!"

"Yeah shut up man, less we talk about that creepy fuck the better."

Kakuzu looked to the sky to judge the time, "If the girl's leaving we'd better go now."

Sakura smiled widely at him, happy that he was going to play along. He sniffed, "I don't go for fucking amateur plans. Besides, there are several choice pieces in Konoha worth a look."

Hidan and Deidara took up their usual flanking positions around Sakura as the three of them rolled their eyes at the man refusing to admit this was going to be fun.

XXXXX

Speaking of Orochimaru, four very familiar ninjas were currently poking around their old boss' base. Sasuke's face had mostly repaired itself although he had been left with a strange cracking noise whenever he moved his jaw.

"So why are we here Sasuke? There's fuck all left."

"Shut up and look for anything unusual."

Juugo pushed his fingers together again. Their leader had been in one hell of a weird mood since the encounter with his old team-mates, brother and apparently distant ancestor. He hadn't even scolded the two idiots for their frequent bickering but had driven them almost to the point of exhaustion getting them here. He was on a mission that for the first time didn't seem to end with murdering his brother and shoving it that blond kid's face. Of course he hadn't told them what this mission was, but then he had never been the talkative type.

Suddenly a door slamming up ahead had them all ready for action, grouped around and behind the second last (although now apparently third last) Uchiha. Readying his sword Sasuke prayed that Madara had just been messing with him, otherwise this was going to be so embarrassing.

A large and incredibly strange chakra signal began to approach them – it was at once very familiar but completely different to anything they'd ever come across. Feeling that it was almost on top of them Sasuke activated his sharingan – only to see Kabuto open the door in front of them.

He looked quite surprised to see them and there was something of an awkward stand-off while they all decided what the hell to do. Then Kabuto's expression changed, and when he opened his mouth Sasuke felt all the blood drain out of his face.

"Why hello Sasuke, I knew you'd come back to me. I can't tell you how annoyed I was with your bad behaviour," here Kabuto paused to lick his lips with a tongue that seemed to have grown since the last time they saw him. Sasuke cursed himself to hell and back for not finishing the job properly.

"But I really can't talk now. This lovely little reunion will have to wait – there's fun to had in dear little Konoha."

Sasuke as if sensing a cue leapt forward but the former medic and God only knows what now disappeared leaving a shocked and angry Sasuke stabbing the thin air.

Juugo put a hand on his shoulder, "Guess we're going to Konoha, huh?"

Sasuke ground his teeth so hard the rest of them could hear it.

XXXXX

R/R!


	14. Chapter 14

Well. It's been a while hasn't it? This was an absolute bitch to write but I suddenly had inspiration so I managed to get it finished at last! Just an epilogue to go now and Sakura's mad adventures with the Akatsuki will be finished. Sad face. Tell me what you think and thank you for not giving up on this story! I love you all!

XXXXX

At the appropriate distance from the base Sakura shouldered her pack more securely and nodded seriously at Kisame, "Ok, I'll see you at the hot springs then? If word hasn't got round that when I'm around all the world's assholes keep turning up."

They all just smirked at the stern glare she sent their way and waved as she shot off into the trees as they pretended to have a camp. Their story would be simple; she disappeared sometime during the night. Hidan had made quite a valid point that maybe one of them should go with her on the pretence of 'going to catch her' just in case the situation around Konoha was more dangerous than they realised. However she'd shot that down on two counts. Firstly, she was a badass ninja in her own right and didn't need a sitter no matter how crazy the situation may be, and secondly turning up with an Akatsuki on her arm was not exactly the image she wanted to present to people if it could be helped. Deidara and Hidan had pouted and whined and even Itachi looked something approaching like he'd rather leave with her but Kisame had the sense to make them shut up. Sakura would go and lie low at the closest hot springs to Konoha and gather information. The rest of them would go and attempt to lie to their boss before following her. Depending on the situation within the village they would either bust in and kick Danzou's ass or sneak in and keep an eye on Sakura while she celebrated the village kicking Danzou's ass before taking her back with them. They hadn't told her about the last bit naturally, she would have hit them, but it was the only acceptable outcome for them.

The next hour was filled with them attempting to formulate a believable lie about how several of the most talented and experienced ninja in the world had managed to let a small woman with bright pink hair slip out of their grasp _again_. Kisame had a sneaking feeling that Pein needed a little more time to recover from dealing with them and this on-going idiocy they'd found themselves in. Hopefully that would mean that he would just tell them to get out of his sight and not bother him again until they'd reverted back to the merciless killers he'd hired. He also knew that Konan had a bit of a soft-spot for the girl and the potential for a real life soap opera she presented. So long as he was allowed to do all the talking, he reckoned they had a good shot at pulling this off.

XXXXX

Several hours later Kisame and the rest of the dream team closed the door to Pein's office behind them, their ears still ringing. After giving something of an abridged report, handing over the plans for the super soldiers and hinting strongly at Danzou's involvement, Pein had been rather pleased with them. It had been the middle of the night when they'd got back and their leader hadn't been happy or properly with it. Hidan wasn't sure he could ever get the image of Pein in just his boxers out of his head. Being in a half-awake state, all the fearsome leader of the Akatsuki could think about was crawling back into bed and wrestling the covers back off Konan. Therefore it didn't immediately register that their newest diversion wasn't in the room. Konoha ninjas tended to suppress their chakra instinctively after growing up around civilians who didn't like feeling it. Not to mention that when Kisame was in a room his chakra signature tended to drown out those around him.

Therefore when he'd finished grunting at them in praise he'd expected them to just leave him alone. What he wasn't expecting was for all of them to drop their heads and scuff their toes on the ground in the practiced pose of a person with something to confess. He'd given them all the hardest look he could manage and had remained stony-faced throughout Kisame's explanation of how Sakura had simply up and vanished during the night, obviously heading back to Konoha.

There'd been quite a long silence. Not as long as some they'd experienced over the past month but it was getting there. Evidently they'd chosen a bad time to drop this particular bombshell as they stood, heads bowed, while Pein ranted and raved about their sheer incompetence and about how they'd better get Sakura back as she was the only one of them with half a functioning brain. Obviously these sentiments were couched in much cruder terms, including a vocabulary that impressed even Kakuzu, but this was the general gist of the matter. After that he'd thrown them out of his living suite, closed and barred the door behind them and retreated to bed. Once they were positive they were out of earshot the group shared a secret celebration. So far so good.

The usual squabbles of who was taking what was conspicuously absent as they packed all their best gear and enough supplies to last them to Konoha and back. All of them were spoiling for a fight, even if it had to be with Konoha ninjas who wanted one of their top medics back.

XXXXX

When they arrived at the hot springs a couple of days later they were met with a raging kunoichi who already had the staff and other patrons cowering whenever she stormed past. Judging by the way the ground was shaking with every step she took the news from Konoha probably wasn't good. They stood and watched as she breathed fire at someone stupid enough to have told her to keep it down and wondered how they were going to get her attention without her tearing chunks off them.

Everyone looked at Kisame hopefully, but he returned the look with one that quite clearly said he wasn't stupid. After a quick game of rock-paper-scissors Itachi was unceremoniously pushed forward while the rest of them tried to make themselves as unobtrusive as possible.

"Sakura."

"... put my foot so far up your ass ..."

"Sakura."

"... be on the front page! ..."

"Sakura!"

Itachi would later deny taking a step back as she whirled around on him. The man she had been shouting into submission took this as a cue to scarper. The men needn't have worried, on seeing them she actually lightened up.

"Oh thank God you're here! And believe me, that's not ever something I thought I'd say."

Kakuzu rolled his eyes at the way this made the day for the rest of them. Hidan had fast been becoming unbearable again on being separated from her good influence.

"So I'm gonna take a shot in the fucking dark here, but I'm guessing Konoha's not as fairies and gumdrops as you left it?" Hidan said, taking advantage of Sakura having scared everyone away to have a seat on one of the loungers.

Sakura gripped the bridge of her nose and tried some of the deep breathing exercises that Konan developed for Kakuzu. "You have no idea. I knew we didn't have long til that rat bastard tried something but I didn't know it would be this soon."

Kisame happened to glance over at Itachi while Sakura was saying that and could have sworn that the younger man looked worried. If Itachi was actually _looking_ worried, then he must really be panicking inside. There'd been something weird going on with him ever since that stupid cave and once they'd dealt with Danzou Kisame was going to get to the bottom of it. Itachi, naturally, remained totally oblivious to the calculating stare of his partner.

"He's taken over?"

"Yeah, turned the tables in the middle of the night, he must have been planning this for months, and we can't know how many people he's got on side."

"So what are we going to do?" Despite Sakura's towering rage about the whole situation, Kisame was pretty unconcerned. Danzou wasn't that much of a threat once people started messing with his carefully laid plans. Messing with carefully laid plans was something the Akatsuki was particularly good at, he thought with a smirk.

"Word is he's planning an official 'ceremony' to announce to the village that he's in charge-"

"Wait, wait, back the fuck up," Hidan held up a hand, smirking at the burning look Sakura graced him with, "I know your village is full of morons but how did that idiot Danzou and his robot army get one over on the Hokage and the jinchuuriki? I thought you warned them?"

"I did!" Sakura's scowl deepened, "But things were already in motion. God knows how he captured Shishou, Naruto and Kakashi-sensei but I wouldn't be surprised if it was something stupid."

"No that wouldn't surprise anyone..." Kakuzu was only half listening to the conversation, concerning himself with how the hot springs should re-invest their money for maximum profit.

"So anyway," Sakura continued as the Akatsuki chuckled, "he's having a ceremony thing and he's probably going to parade them around and talk about what a danger Naruto is and shit. The civilians lap that sort of crap up."

"See that's why all the sensible villages don't give a fuck about them."

Kisame put a hand out just in case Sakura decided to snap and beat Hidan senseless. Admittedly it would be something the priest would enjoy but they really didn't have the time for it right now. Itachi was starting to vibrate with what Kisame would call nerves if the Uchiha was a normal man and Sakura looked as if she was about to raise the place to the ground in sheer annoyance.

"Ok, so what's he going to do after that?"

"I don't know! Only ROOT knows and they have this stupid seal which means they can't blab so I'm just going on what the normal ninjas and civilians know."

"This doesn't make any sense, why are your ninjas going along with this shit? I mean come the fuck on, I know Tsunade is a soft touch but they must know that life would be hell under that paranoid twat." Hidan snagged a cocktail off the table next to his seat and talked over the rim, avoiding the little umbrella.

Sakura sighed, picking up a cocktail of her own and leaning back on her heels, "Tsunade wasn't everyone's first choice and she doesn't take any shit so obviously the council doesn't like her. Plus there's a lot more of ROOT than we thought, anyone who even looks like they might argue with Danzou has got one of those weirdoes standing behind them."

Deidara clapped his hands together, already forming something explosive between them. "Well then yeah, we get in there, and we fuck shit up!"

Sakura managed a wan smile in the face of such rampant enthusiasm, "I don't know if it'll be as easy as that."

Kisame smiled at her fondly, it was like she kept forgetting just who she was dealing with. "Yeah it will, now, when's this ceremony?"

"Tomorrow at noon."

"Well, put on your nicest clothes, we're going to crash the party."

XXXXX

Danzou smirked out at the gathered crowds. There were plenty of mutinous faces in the masses but his ROOT agents had done their work well and he'd had no problems so far. He was feeling confident enough that most of his agents were back within the base and only a few were dispersed among the crowd, ready to deal with any insurrection. He'd been surprised at how smoothly his takeover had happened. Tsunade had obviously been onto him but she had been too late to do anything about it. Everything had gone off without a hitch – he still couldn't believe it. The council were firmly behind him and the ninjas that weren't had already had a stern reminder that he was Hokage now in the form of threats to their families. And now here he was, on stage with Tsunade, and the brat tied up and sealed and ready to be denounced in front of the whole village. There was nothing that could go wrong.

Raising a hand the disgruntled murmuring of the crowd ceased and he launched into his prepared speech about the new future of Konoha. Coincidentally this new future was going to start with the end of the old regime and the end of Tsunade and Naruto on some jumped up charges he was rather proud of. They were just believable enough that the civilians would take them hook line and sinker, and there was nothing her loyal ninjas could do.

"So, does that meet with everyone's approval?" It was a rhetorical question naturally, and he did so enjoy exercising his new-found power.

There was silence for a heartbeat and then a voice cut across it, "No, it fucking well doesn't!"

The crowd gasped in shock as they separated around a hooded figure standing directly before the stage. Tsunade and Naruto immediately perked up on recognising it, starting to struggle with the ties holding them.

Danzou looked rather sour-faced at the interruption. He would have to have this woman dealt with. "And why not?"

Sakura tugged her hood down revealing her pink hair to the joy of many of the ninjas in the crowd who immediately began whispering about it. "'Cos everyone knows you're full of shit."

Danzou sneered on seeing Tsunade's apprentice. A talented girl no doubt but with the same temper that got her mentor into trouble. "And just what do _you_ plan to do about it?"

The emphasis on the you made Sakura smirk and that in turn made Danzou feel something approaching anxiety, what was the girl hiding?

She looked over his shoulder as a huge explosion rocked the village. He spun to see the column of smoke rising from the crater where his ROOT headquarters had been ten seconds ago. Wordlessly he turned back to the girl who was now lazily flipping a kunai in one hand, "Oh, it's not just me..."

She trailed off as Kisame and Itachi materialised out of thin air at her sides. The silence that followed was definitely the most exciting and possibly the least stressful she'd experienced in the last month.

Danzou tensed and the battle was on.

ROOT agents leapt towards them from the crowd, the sudden freedom allowing the loyal ninjas to start evacuating the civilians before picking up and heading to defend their village. Sakura leapt through the crowd to free her mentor and best friend while Danzou suddenly found himself face to face with a possibly angry, maybe worried, it was hard to tell from his face, Itachi. Kisame, naturally, was causing havoc below them.

"Sakura, what in the hell do you think you're doing?" Tsunade had never been happier to see her apprentice but she'd taught the girl better than to wander into life-threatening situations like this.

"And what the hell are those assholes doing here?" Naruto tried for angry but actually just looked excited; it was always fun to watch people as good as Itachi and Kisame without them trying to kill you.

The three of them ducked a shadow clone that had been flung out of the melee happening under the stage. Sakura caught Kisame's eye and grinned as he shredded a ROOT agent that had clearly been planning on sneaking up on them.

"Well I had to do something! And these guys are mental but they can kick some serious ass."

"You're damn right!"

The three of them jumped as Hidan appeared out of nowhere and landed beside them. "Don't look at me like that brat, now where's the one-eyed wonder and the wood guy?"

Sakura forced down a laugh at Hidan's endlessly flattering descriptions of Kakashi and Yamato, and instead looked to Tsunade.

"Probably in the cells under the Hokage tower, that's where we were held. Let's damn well hope they weren't in ROOT headquarters," She finished with a sour look at Hidan who just shrugged.

"The kid likes what he fucking does, seriously. Now come on, there's a hell of a lot more of these bastards than I thought, you people are going to have to pull your fucking weight."

Tsunade and Naruto glared hard enough to remind him that this was just a temporary truce before Naruto leapt into the fray with a whoop and Tsunade started on healing the closest loyal ninja to her. Hidan grabbed Sakura's hand and they shot off in the direction of the tower to free the rest of the political prisoners to give themselves some extra back up.

XXXXX

Hidan reached the trapdoor leading to the cells first and frowned at the complicated jutsu. Sakura simply burst the door open with a chakra enhanced fist, the chakra detector immediately recognising her. Hidan grinned after her retreating back and leapt through, careful to dodge to the wood shards that still wanted to disintegrate him for having foreign chakra.

The walls were lined with cells filled with an interesting variety of prisoners, torture equipment and the occasional skeleton. Hidan looked on with interest as he followed Sakura down the stairs to the highest security part of the complex.

"I didn't know you all had it in you, seriously!" He laughed as they passed through a particularly bloodstained corridor, "The whole flowers and fucking hippy attitude is all just for show isn't it? You can be honest with me, seriously."

Sakura actually laughed, but she couldn't decide whether it was his commentary or hysteria at just what was going on above their heads. Hidan chose to think it was the former. The ROOT guards outside the cells of what could only be described as the political prisoners looked very surprised to see them barrelling down the corridor. Well as surprised as people with no emotions could possibly look – Sakura blamed her enhanced Uchiha-emotion sensors for being able to pick up on things like that.

In what Sakura initially thought was something of a flattering burst of chivalry Hidan took the lead and distracted the guards by killing them while she rushed to decode the chakra locks holding the thick steel door closed on her friends. As she listened with one ear to Hidan cackling madly and giving the agents a lecture on the power of Jashin Sakura realised he probably just wanted to kill them himself, no chivalry intended, and couldn't work out why she was slightly disappointed. It was definitely the mental clinic once things had calmed down.

Ducking to avoid a burst of arterial spray as Hidan finished off the last one, his scythe devastatingly effective in such an enclosed space, she managed to break the code. The ninjas inside had obviously been pressed up against the door as they all spilled out practically onto the floor as she heaved the door open, the metal bars squealing as they gave way under her enhanced strength. Kakashi was the first out looking an interesting mixture of relieved, excited and immensely irritated that Hidan was lounging in the background nonchalantly, his scythe on his shoulder at a jaunty angle. He was followed by Yamato and several other high level jounins including Gai, Kurenai, Anko and Genma. They all seemed very conflicted to have been rescued by one of the village's greatest enemies and Sakura was forced to jump in to prevent Gai from launching into one of his trademark rants.

"Deidara took out a lot of ROOT when he destroyed the headquarters but there are still loads out there and you have to go help!"

Kurenai opened her mouth but Sakura cut her off, "Do I look like I'm fucking with you? Get the hell out of here! And for fuck's sake don't shit yourselves when you see the rest of the Akatsuki out there, they're helping!"

Kakashi swelled up with pride as he watched his darling student swear like a sailor as she took complete charge of the situation. Grabbing Kurenai by the upper arm he nodded to the two of them and took off at a run.

The rest followed except Anko took a moment to eye Hidan up and give him a wink, "You always get the hot ones Sakura, damn!"

"Why are the hot ones always mad, bad or totally gay?"

"That's life kiddo!" Anko laughed as she sprinted away to crack some heads.

Sakura made to follow and made it into the corridor before Hidan caught her, one big hand around her wrist, and span her against the wall. Before she could react he'd pressed himself right against her and slammed his mouth onto hers. Her mind made a split second decision which ran along the lines of 'fuck it' and she fisted her hands into his cloak and pulled him closer. There was one thing to be said for strange immortal beings of indeterminate age and that was that they knew how to kiss. He shoved a hand into her hair and slid his arm around her back to hold her somehow closer against him, his lips moving over hers in a way she was sure should be illegal.

Although he'd thoroughly fried her brain he was evidently still with it enough to remember that they were still kind of in the middle of a fight to the death and this really wasn't the time to be making out in the secure prison under the Hokage's tower. He stepped away from her, looking in rather smug satisfaction at her glassy expression and swollen lips, before gesturing with his head up the stairs back into the fight. Sakura shook her head and pulled herself together, reacting to his smug smirk with a look of exasperation and following the path the jounin had taken.

XXXXX

Naruto, blissfully unaware of the homicidal priest defiling his best friend and surrogate sister, was having the time of his life. Hidan had been right in there was a hell of a lot more ROOT than they'd thought possible and there seemed to be a never ending stream of expressionless weirdos who wanted to stab him. It was the best fight he'd had in years and it was all down to the fact he was standing back to back with Kisame and the two of them were tearing through their opposition. True, usually Kisame was trying to tear him up but Naruto wasn't one to hold a grudge, especially not when Samehada was singing over his head beating in skulls and absorbing indecent amounts of chakra. Itachi was still fighting Danzou who was surprisingly spry for an old bastard but they'd been joined by Kakuzu whose expression never seemed to change from an irritated scowl as he flickered in and out dispatching anyone unlucky enough to be in disembowelling distance.

In the distance he had spotted Gai flying into combat, a loud man in a bright green jumpsuit was hard to miss after all, and knew that Sakura and the freak had made it in and out again. He hollered as Kakashi appeared looking completely unruffled by the carnage going on around him. His sensei gave him a lazy wave as he caught a kunai out of mid-air and effortlessly plunged it into a ROOT who had been looming over a downed Hyuuga. Speaking of Hyuugas the clan was more than holding their own in its little corner of the battlefield with Neji, Hinata and Hanabi forming a triangle that was blocking every damn chakra point in the vicinity. Every loyal ninja was fighting and if Naruto wasn't so busy making sure he didn't get killed as well as making sure Kisame didn't get too far ahead of him in their unofficial counting game he would have gotten slightly emotional.

Unfortunately he had to save those thoughts for later as suddenly a strange feeling ran down the spines of every ninja present, ROOT or otherwise. A strange lull descended over the fight as they attempted to locate the source of the disturbance. Hidan had been distracted dealing with some particular sinners so Sakura was by herself when she felt the ground near the edge of the fight start to vibrate with unnatural energy. The rumbling grew stronger and Sakura crossed her fingers and prayed it wasn't any of those idiotic super-soldiers from before. She couldn't see exactly what happened as a strong arm grabbed her round the waist and swept her away from the explosion that she had been firmly within the blast radius of.

She landed with an 'oof' shielded from the smoke and debris by a large piece of stone that had been brought down from a building earlier in the fight. Looking up she found herself staring into bright blue eyes.

"Watch yourself, yeah?" Deidara grinned down at her, looking more excited than she'd ever seen him.

She tried to ignore the way he was stretched out on top of her as she asked, "One of yours?"

He pulled a displeased face until he noticed the slight smirk that revealed she was teasing him, going straight for the guts in revenge for him laughing at her.

"You're a bitch, yeah?" She would have been offended if he hadn't whispered it with such a fond look on his face.

She managed a laugh before he caught her lips in a kiss that showed he thoroughly deserved his self-given title of artist. He took most of his weight on his arm and cupped her face with his other hand, the mouth on it firmly shut. It seemed the mouths on his hands weren't the only talented ones he had either. 'Kissing's pretty great' was the only coherent thought she could manage as the rest of her brain was tied up in feeling Deidara all over her.

He pulled away far too soon for her liking but there was the matter of the giant explosion, the dust just beginning to settle enough to see what was happening and she dreaded to think what Naruto would say if he caught her in this position. Grinning at her he helped her up and they peeked over the edge of the stone to see a man who looked like Kabuto standing in front of a small force of Sound ninja.

"My my, just what is going on here?"

Every ninja who hadn't been brought up in some kind of intensive farming project shivered as they recognised that voice. Orochimaru. As if the day couldn't get any worse.

"Oi, I thought Sasuke-teme killed you!" Naruto pointed an accusing finger through the crowd which obligingly parted slightly so Orochimaru-Kabuto could see him doing it.

"Orochimaru's like a bad penny kid, he always keeps turning up!" Jiraiya spoke in the silence before Orochimaru had time to answer.

"How long did it take you to think that one up?" Tsunade scoffed as she walked to stand shoulder to shoulder with her oldest friend.

"And where the hell have you been, you old pervert? If you were at the baths while we've been busting our balls out here I'm going to –"

"For fuck's sake shut up Naruto."

The crowd, which had been watching these exchanges with interest while Orochimaru fumed that no one was paying him any attention, pivoted to look at the new speaker.

Naruto folded his arms, an incredibly unimpressed look on his face, "Sasuke-teme," he said in acknowledgement.

Deidara leaned into Sakura to whisper in her ear, "It's a fucking party up in here, yeah."

"If by party you mean absolute clusterfuck..."

"Hit that little bastard Uchiha again, it'll make our year, yeah."

"Itachi might murder me."

"Itachi's a dick."

Itachi was thankfully out of earshot of this little conversation, instead spreading his disgusted stares between Danzou, Orochimaru and the ragamuffins Sasuke had gotten himself involved with. Honestly, the boy should know better than that.

Sasuke just gave Naruto a withering look, showing that he was much better at cold civility than the dumbass would ever be.

Orochimaru decided that enough was quite enough and it was high time the focus was back on him and cleared his throat loudly and obviously. Kisame just rolled his eyes, Orochimaru had always been a goddamn drama queen.

"No, darling little Sasuke does seem to have a little trouble finishing the job doesn't he?"

"If that's some sort of fucked up sexual allusion no one here wants to know, seriously," Hidan cut across, vocalising the thoughts of absolutely everyone present.

Sasuke went an interesting shade of puce while Naruto turned a little green and took some deep breaths to try and cleanse any such mental images from his head.

Orochimaru smirked and continued, "So no, he hasn't killed me. No one can kill me!"

"Well now you've fucked it. Villains are pretty much contractually obligated to get murdered after saying that shit." Kisame wasn't at all fazed by the poisonous look sent his way.

"Orochimaru still owes the Akatsuki money; I'll be claiming the corpse to cash in on the bounty to repay those debts." Kakuzu announced from the edge of the circle that had formed around Naruto and the two sannin.

"Did you just call dibs on a fucking corpse?"

"Not to interrupt, but what the hell happens now?" Yamato resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose in the face of the surreal situation he was finding himself in.

Tsunade stepped forward rubbing her hands, "Orochimaru, Sound ninjas, Danzou and ROOT agents bad ... Konoha ninjas and, something I never thought I'd hear coming out of my mouth, Akatsuki good!"

"What about Sasuke-teme?"

"I don't bloody know, just roll with it! Now get to work, there's a bottle of sake with my name on it and I'm getting mighty thirsty!"

With a whoop the battle was back on, the opposing forces blending into each other into one massive fight which appeared much more like a bar brawl than a deciding match for the fate of a ninja village. Deidara waited until Sakura was distracted destroying anyone who looked at her funny before moving to the opposite side of the fight to let off a few of his choice pieces. He couldn't pull out the big guns with the crowd so mixed but, hell, he'd got to blow up the headquarters so that should hold him for a while.

Hidan had cleared a neat little space around him that none of his current enemies were particularly keen to enter. He may have been the slowest Akatsuki but there was just no taking him down. Reaching around himself he yanked out the kunai that had been buried in his lower back and jammed it back into its owner with a maniacal laugh that further supported the theory that he was best left alone on the battlefield.

Kisame was whistling as he racked up even more numbers on his side of the counting game. Naruto was distracted by having a deep conversation about loyalty and how much of a dick Sasuke had been as they stood in the middle of the battlefield, blatantly ignoring Orochimaru, Danzou and pretty much everyone else. That little bitch Suigetsu was running around here somewhere although he seemed to have the sense to focus on the Sound ninja. This was officially the weirdest day and once Kisame got round to writing his memoirs the shifting alliances happening right now were going to be the hardest thing to explain.

Sasuke's little band of merry men (and Karin) were feeling pretty out of their depth. This was the first time they'd ever been to Konoha and it was fair to say that perhaps they weren't seeing it at its best. Rather than the sort of dopey do-gooders that Sasuke was always complaining about them being, the Konoha ninjas were instead armed to the teeth and putting the boot into anyone stupid enough to try and mess with their home. On top of that Sasuke's big brother was here like he owned the place and the rest of the Akatsuki seemed to have their 'number one enemies of the state' status revoked for the time being. Thankfully there was the familiar sight of Sound ninjas, and in Juugo's humble opinion they always needed fucking up.

The battle was intense, if a little disorganised. The loyal Konoha ninjas and their temporary allies had the easiest job as it was pretty damn clear who their two sets of enemies were. The Sound ninjas and Danzou's ROOT agents were having a harder time – they now had a battle on two fronts as there was no way in hell they were going to join up with each other to try and take over Konoha – Orochimaru would never accept help anyway, much less from someone like Danzou. The fighting managed to remain mostly contained in the area before the Hokage's tower much to the relief of the civilians currently taking shelter as far away from their crazy ninja neighbours as possible. All they could hope for was that whoever won made sure to clean the mess up afterwards.

XXXXX

Eventually the battle wound down to the stage where the victorious Konoha/Akatsuki/Team Hebi ninjas had formed a viewing circle around the main event – a strange multi-way showdown between Tsunade, Jiraiya, Naruto, Sasuke, Itachi, Danzou and Orochimaru.

Naruto stretched up, resting his hands behind his head in his practiced lounging pose, "So, what now?"

"I'm going to put my foot up Orochimaru's ass." Tsunade stated with finality.

"What about Danzou?"

"Itachi can deal with that amateur."

Danzou puffed up in outrage that someone would dare call him such a thing! Orochimaru didn't help the situation by giving him a sympathetic look.

"Hey, kid, are you going to try and murder your brother today?" Jiraiya questioned, more interested in watching Tsunade crack her knuckles in front of him than Sasuke's answer.

Sasuke looked conflicted, on one hand this was the longest he'd spent not unconsciousness in his brother's presence and he'd be a fool to waste this opportunity. On the other hand his brother had never tried to molest him unlike certain other evil villains in the vicinity and such matters had to take precedence. "Hn."

"That means no!" Sakura helpfully injected from the sidelines where she was kneeling over Genma fixing the deep slash in his thigh.

Itachi merely inclined his head towards his brother in acknowledgement, showing the flawless Uchiha manners that Sasuke never quite developed.

The silence stretched for an uncomfortable minute until "For fuck's sake get on with it" in Hidan's strident voice came from somewhere within the crowd. Orochimaru huffed as his moment of drama was ruined and this sudden lack of concentration was all Tsunade needed to clear the space and punch him in the face so hard Kabuto's glasses were practically disintegrated. As he crashed into a building Naruto screwed his face up, "Come on you old bag, leave some for the rest of us!"

Danzou was watching this with interest and was not watching the second last surviving Uchiha who suddenly appeared behind him and dispatched him with very little effort. Another silence stretched out as the remaining few ROOT agents tried to process their freedom from the tyranny of their master.

"Well that was anti-climactic."

"I believe you owe me 10000¥ Kisame."

"Goddamnit!"

Unfortunately Orochimaru was not quite so easily dealt with as he'd retained enough of Kabuto to make healing himself less of a challenge. Pulling himself out of the wreckage he faced down his opponents who now included the man who had forced him to leave the Akatsuki after that whole embarrassing failed body-take over thing. His ninjas had been taken all the way to town by a combination of pissed off Konoha ninjas and previous genetic experiments that bore him something of a grudge. The odds were not in his favour and he had always felt that discretion was the better part of valour. Time to go.

Tsunade and Jiraiya saw this thought process written all over his face and decided to act before he could slink away to cause trouble later on. Shouting to Naruto and Sasuke to get their asses in gear they lunged forward, managing to grab hold of one of Orochimaru's arms each, pulling tightly and exposing his torso.

Sasuke immediately started powering up his chidori – revenge would have been sweeter if he'd got the damn thing right the first time around but he'd learned not to be too picky over the years. Naruto wasn't quite as on the ball as his old friend and instead looked to Itachi to point out what was expected of him right now. Itachi gave him the patented Uchiha withering stare and gestured for the rasengan. Kisame, Sakura and the rest of the Akatsuki thought it was quite sweet that Itachi had found someone even less socially aware than he was to mentor. Catching up Naruto formed a clone to help the process along as the rest of the village rolled its eyes that this was their top ninja. Kakuzu cast a very knowing look over the crowd to Sakura who just flipped him off.

Orochimaru kicked, struggled and tried to shout his way out of his fate but Naruto and Sasuke took opposite sides and charged. The resulting white light and explosion impressed even Deidara.

XXXXX

Tsunade had dispatched every able bodied ninja under her command to clean up the mess and was standing in a clearing outside the village walls with Naruto, Kakashi, Yamato and Sai. As it turned out Kakashi had had the forethought to tie him up and leave him in the care of his dogs so he couldn't cause them any trouble and so he wouldn't get hurt by any overzealous Konoha ninjas. Facing them were the Akatsuki and Team Hebi who were all in good shape considering the massive battle that had just taken place. Sakura was hovering in the middle, trying not to show partisan feelings for either side.

Hidan and Deidara were looking particularly pleased with themselves and were smirking smugly at her, not realising that the other was doing the same until Kisame made a show of looking at both of them in amusement. They shared a confused look before a dawning realisation had them scowling fiercely at each other before glaring at Sakura.

She simply gave them both a very measured look, a hint of a smirk playing about the corner of her mouth, "Don't look at me. This is your problem, not mine." She said, before turning back to her shishou.

The two of them looked stunned before shaking their heads and deciding to deal with it later. Kisame caught Kakuzu's eye and mouthed 'DAMN!' which got a bark of laughter even out of the bounty hunter who was super pissed that they'd disintegrated Orochimaru to the point where he couldn't claim the bounty. Itachi looked oblivious to the undercurrents around him once more, looking as serene as ever now Danzou and Orochimaru were dead – a welcome return to normality.

Team Hebi were still eying up the Akatsuki and Sakura warily but Sasuke was ignoring them as usual. Juugo couldn't help but wonder if there was perhaps an opening on a team with a leader who gave a shit but reminded himself that he was practically the only good influence Sasuke had.

Tsunade folded her arms, "Right, this is the part where you tell me what your plans are."

Hidan scratched the side of his head, "Murder, pillage, world domination, you know, the usual."

Tsunade gave him an unimpressed look before turning to Kisame – even people who'd only known them a few hours could tell that he was the sensible one.

"We're going to go back to base and pretend today never happened. Sound good?"

"Now you're talking. What about you Uchiha?"

Sasuke nodded, the less he remembered about today the better, "I'll come back and kill Itachi and the dobe later."

"You wish bastard!"

Kakashi and Yamato shared a look that perhaps letting several criminals simply leave the village wasn't perhaps the best idea but it had been one hell of a long day.

Tsunade made a shooing motion with her hand and Team Hebi took the hint, disappearing into the trees. Sasuke looked back to see his old team-mates who just waved at him. He tch'd, they could have at least looked a little upset.

The Akatsuki were less keen to leave, well not really, but they didn't want to leave Sakura behind. It was quite clear that her team was quite convinced she'd be staying back in Konoha with them. Hidan and Deidara were totally prepared to disabuse them of that notion but Kisame held them back as a significant look passed between Sakura and her mentor.

"As much as I hate to say this, we really could use someone on the inside when it comes to an organisation like the Akatsuki." Tsunade gave the men in front of her the hardest glare she could muster, conveying a silent warning that they had better look after her or else. She tried not to smile as the weight of her words sunk in and the excitement could be read plainly on their faces (well, not Itachi's or Kakuzu's but the point stood).

Sakura picked up a pack that had been sitting behind her and chucked it to Itachi who caught it on reflex. Naruto and Sai looked aghast at the thought she was actually going to be leaving with those assholes but Kakashi and Yamato shared another look, one of understanding. It was pretty obvious that she was going to be in safe hands, even if those were the hands of murderous and insane criminals. Sakura swept Naruto up into a hug which they pulled Sai into as she promised that she wouldn't be away long. Stepping back she hugged Kakashi and Yamato before throwing herself into the arms of her surrogate mother figure. After repeated promises to write to them often and return for Naruto's birthday she walked over to be re-kidnapped by the Akatsuki.

"What are we going to tell the village?" Sai asked, trying to pin down this uncomfortable emotion that had Naruto in floods of tears.

"That they up and left and snagged Sakura when they did."

"They'll go for that? Damn." Hidan smirked at the annoyed glances sent his way.

"They'll damn well have to, and that's the story you lot stick to, clear? Don't do anything stupid now Sakura."

"Come on shishou, when have I ever done anything stupid?" Sakura gave them all an innocent smile before Kisame pushed her forward into the trees, nodding to the gathered team. Everyone shared a look, that girl was going to be the death of all of them.

"Let's get the fuck home before Pein has a shit-fit."

"He's going to kill us, yeah?"

"Totally worth it."

As they shot through the trees on their way back to Amegakure and the banter flowed around her, Sakura had to admit; it had been totally worth it. They were totally worth the craziness that came with them.

XXXXX

R/R


	15. Chapter 15

And here we are; the end of the road. Sad faces all around my friends! I get the distinct feeling that I won't be able to let these characters go this easily though, they are now pretty much officially canon for me. I think what will come next is probably a series of one shots with them or something similar. Would you chaps be interested in something like that?

I can't tell you how much I've loved your support over the course of this story and I'm so grateful for everyone who's taken the time to read this drivel. You're all amazing and wonderful and gold stars for everyone!

See you all on the flip side and whatnot,

Love, odmonkey

XXXXX

_Dear Tsunade-Hime,_

_I hope this letter finds you well and hopefully not suffering from quite as many idiotic underlings as I am. Konan and I were greatly amused to read of your latest trouble with that fool of a bijuu container that has taken to calling himself your strongest ninja. Even the cretins I employ only manage to cause international incidents when that's what they actually set out to do. How is the Water Daimyo now anyway? Word is that such a scare wasn't unusual given his heart condition._

_In regards to our enemy status, it was unfortunate that several of your leaf-nin were also trying to retrieve that scroll. Kisame tells me that he had nothing to do with the way Itachi dealt with them as he was too busy trying to stop the dam from bursting and flooding the temple, with him and your ninjas inside. Itachi was extremely quiet on the matter and didn't bring it up at his performance review meeting which makes me think that your ninjas provoked him. They should consider themselves very lucky that the idiot boy is scared enough of Sakura to merely incapacitate them, even if his methods have made them the laughing stock of your village. I also hope you appreciate the heroic effort it took to stop Deidara destroying one of your camps near the Grass border after one of your underlings joked about his hair. That boy is more invested in his hair than anyone else on the planet and the asking whether he and Orochimaru had the same hairdresser is usually a death sentence. If Kakuzu hadn't been in the area there would just be a smoking crater where your information post used to be. I believe you witnessed his skills first hand when he was in Konoha playing hero. Speaking of Kakuzu I would have thought it would have been obvious that unless you have a substantial bounty he is mostly bark and no bite. Honestly, if a group of your ANBU get that scared by the threat of having their hearts torn out you need to retrain them. I believe the less we say about Hidan the better. Suffice to say he is the biggest embarrassment this organisation has ever employed and if it wasn't for the fact that he is terrifyingly effective at what he does he would be out to the job centre before he could open his stupid mouth. _

_In response to your continued queries, yes, Sakura is fine. I will attach her letters to this post as usual once I have read through them all. Before you start thinking of giving me any attitude it is just as well that I am the one who reads them. Madara would have throttled her if he'd seen the way she described him in one of her previous missives. Even if he were 'a dementia-addled old pervert' that's certainly not the sort of thing that should be spread to enemy villages. I assure you that your apprentice is as annoying as ever. We had to replace a whole bathroom after she punched Hidan through the wall. Usually that wouldn't be a problem but she destroyed the boiler meaning there was no hot water on the fourth floor for nearly a week. I'm attaching the repair bill to this letter and expect you to wire the money in full. You authorised her to come 'spy' on us so you have to foot the bill of any destruction she causes. _

_I would also like to take issue with the fact that she is causing tension between Deidara and Hidan by refusing to choose between them. Thankfully those two are almost never allowed on missions together (such stupidity does not need to be compounded by having any sort of encouragement) but it does make meetings and meal times extremely annoying. When confronted on the matter all I received from her was a bored look and the explanation 'it's not my problem, it's theirs'. I would like to disagree as were it not for her extremely aggravating presence things around this organisation would go back to normal. I wish you to say as much in your reply to her and encourage her to come back to you. In other more worrying news it appears that Itachi has grown some ridiculous scruffy facial hair that most men manage to surpass by the end of puberty. When I questioned Kisame about it he seemed rather more pleased about it than I feel the situation warrants and wandered away whistling a tune that sounded very much like 'how many roads must a man walk down'. I would appreciate it if you would pass on any information about the Uchihas that you may have so I can get to the root of Itachi's problem. I have seldom been so disturbed as to walk in on a seven foot tall blue shark man teaching a grown man how to shave in the bathroom. _

_I would be extremely grateful if you would find some way to deal with Itachi's younger brother as he and his band of merry cretins has been skulking about trying to cause trouble. Itachi has unfailing patience with them but I assure you he is the only one. As I understand Sasuke used to be friends with your little protégé, why not facilitate that relationship? Konoha is, after all, much better equipped at dealing with reject ninja than an elite organisation such as my own. I will gladly bundle them up and deliver them to you, minus perhaps the large one who has some potential. _Juugo_, Sakura informs me his name is. The rest are all yours and Kisame assures me that any damage done to the 'wannabe swordsman' would not trouble him in the slightest._

_In addition I would also like to draw your attention to the following plans that were in the pocket of a Konoha ninja that was attempting to sneak into the village. I have circled the most egregious errors and would encourage you to fire the person feeding you this information. I would like to take issue with several points; the most pressing being that this is our home as much as it is an evil stronghold and very few people build their homes in an active volcano. I don't believe there even is an active volcano in the nearby area. Secondly our sewer system is extremely modern and put in at great expense – there are no ancient passageways or any lurking underwater monsters unless you feel Kisame counts. Thirdly we don't have any wells for you to poison. Believe me when I say that shortage of water is rarely a problem in this village. Sakura was quite annoyed that this seemed to be your plan as had your ninjas had any idea what they were doing (a laughable notion I admit, but still) they may well have poisoned her as well. Expect to find a lengthy diatribe about the matter in her letter to you._

_In addition to the various bills Sakura has racked up during her time here I also enclose details of some of the Sound bases that we have found. We believe they are the Orochimaru's labs which is why they have been so difficult to locate. There are bound to be some particularly grim discoveries to be made but as there are sure to be nasty seals to keep ninjas out we haven't explored them. I do not doubt you will have a hard time keeping your number one team of idiots away from them and I shall keep an eye on the obituaries section after I have sent this missive. Shall I simply send the condolence flowers to your office?_

_In closing I wish to thank you once again for burdening me with your apprentice and destroying what little hope for peace and quiet I had. Really, words cannot express my gratitude. You may use this hawk to reply, Hidan seriously dislikes your slug messengers, but I suggest you keep all other summons or familiars away from him. He has something of an appetite and as far as I'm aware Kisame still doesn't know what happened to the contents of his aquarium. _

_Yours, _

_Pein_


End file.
